Echoes of the Past: Animal testing report stirs strong feelings

A news article in the 21 November edition of Optician from 1975 shows how animal testing was just as an emotive issue 40 years ago for many people as it is today.

Details of a study published in the journal Nature, on the physiology of vision in cats by Dr Colin Blakemore of Cambridge University, were reported in the news pages.

The study sought to find out more about the physiological mechanisms which allowed the human brain to compensate for prism-induced displacement, partial rotation and complete inversion of the retinal image.

Four cats were used for the experiment, one adult and three kittens less than three weeks old. One of the kittens was kept in complete darkness for two weeks. All four had insertions of all of the extraocular muscles of the right eye divided, and the whole globe gently intorted to varying extents. The rotated eye remained in its new position without suturing, the conjunctiva healed rapidly and partial muscle reattachment was evident. Only limited eye movement returned.