Progressive in so many other ways, New Orleans has been backward in one respect toward the two medical schools located here.
Our laws don't permit LSU and Tulane medical schools to make use of the 20,000 stray dogs which the SPCA finds on its hands each year. These dogs are destroyed without purpose — ip a senseless waste of one of the basic resources of medical experimentation. Attempts to change these laws have teen shouted down by delegations of animal lovers, who found City Council-men susceptible to their arguments.
An ordinance to turn stray dogs over to the medical schools has been lately introduced. A public hearing is set for tomorrow at 10 a. m. in the City Council chamber.
It took a certain amount of courage for Council President Clasen to introduce this billj and for the other Council members to agree among themselves to a public vote on the question. Few things are more terrifying to elected officials than to see a crowd of unified, dedicated, purposeful people-as the animal lovers certainly are-bearing down on them with anger and outrage showing in their every motion. This is what will happen tomorrow in the Council chamber. We will hear
again the recitation of the nobility of animals, especially dogs. And of the supposed horrors of the medical experimentation laboratory.
N o w, we don't really believe doctors torture dogs—not for an instant.
Dogs may suffer pain when the anaesthetic wears off after an operation, yes. But the medical schools have shown conclusively that the animals are treated as humanely as possible.
As for pain—humans suffer a lot of it, too. Some persons suffer from causes which may be eradicated as medical science advances.
For all we know, viruses may suffer pain when the injection of an antibiotic into an ill human goes to work. Who would give serious attention to the plaints of a Society For The Prevention of Cruelty to Streptococci?
The whole question resolves into a recognition of the twq classes of animate creatures—humans on one hand, and all the rest on the other hand. When a use is found for non-Iiumans which helps humans, that is a good use.
The Council should listen, with great forbearance, to all arguments tomorrow. Then promptly pass the ordinance giving the stray dogs to the medical schools
