Abstract
How experimental research carried out on dogs has benefited both that animal and man is described in the Memorandum of the Medical Research Council on the Dogs Protection Bill now before Parliament. Recent advances in knowledge have been made by this means in the study of rickets, disorders of the teeth, diseases of the heart and circulation, and in diabetes, as well as in distemper and various types of jaundice prevalent among dogs. The proof that rickets is a dietary disease and can be cured by changing the diet, so as to supply an adequate amount of the anti-rachitic vitamin, was first obtained by feeding experiments carried out on puppies. An unexpected outcome of these experiments was the discovery that absence or deficiency of this vitamin in the diet prevents the proper development of the hard enamel of the teeth: this work is still in progress, and may lead to the prevention of dental decay in human beings. The control of diabetes by the use of insulin, which has been such a boon to sufferers from this disease, was made possible by experiments on dogs: in fact the whole of our knowledge of this disease from the time of the discovery of the relation of the pancreas to diabetes to the discovery of insulin has been gained by experiments on this animal. Nor must the benefits to the dog itself from experimental research be forgotten: protection against distemper is already becoming practicable, as also against the spirochetal jaundice which is not uncommon in Great Britain and often fatal, whilst a cure has been found for the malignant jaundice or piroplasmosis of dogs in the injection of the dye trypan blue.
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[News and Views]. Nature 119, 898–903 (1927). https://doi.org/10.1038/119898a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/119898a0