Referat Draize-Test - Cigarette tests, The effect of a closed artery

Draize-Test

This test has been especially designed for the testing of medical, cosmetical and chemical substances, but also for the testing of the end products, like creams, lipsticks, mascaras, face-lotion, soap, shampoos, powder, hairspray, toothpaste, lacquer, detergent and everything, which could perhaps touch one's skin someday somehow.

The number of rabbits and other animals, which are killed by this procedure day by day, must be some millions.

The rabbits, which are immobilised, sit in long lines of cages for 72 hours. Their eyes are kept open by metal- or plastic clamps, so that they're not able to twinkle. In short intervals chemicals, poisons, toxics and acids are dripped into their eyes. The animals cannot lick or scratch themselves, and they do not have the possibillity of diluting these aching substances either, because they have no tear gland. (That's one important reason for the use of rabbits for these kinds ot tests.)

The effects of these tests are evaluated by machines. Depending on the tested substance the rabbits' eyes get red, their cornea (this is the outer skin of the eyeball) is injured, the tissues are destructed or they build abscesses. The eyes are destroyed systematically in layers. If the eyes are only red, the animals will be used again time after time till they die.

Neither an anaesthetic nor a painkiller is given to the animals.

In other tests the animals are sheared and the skin is cut open. Then the substances are placed on these cuts till you can see open wounds or swellings.

Cigarette tests

Cigarettes are also "tested" by animals. Some years ago 86 dogs (race: beagle) were forced to smoke 455 cigarettes every day. This procedure took about one and a half year. After this time 12 of  them got pulmonary cancer. Although this test doesn't say anything about the physical reaction of human smokers, it's still done with other animals.

Medicament tests (for people who have kidney trouble)

A special kind of tube is inserted into the sheeps' neck-vein. Through this tube the sheep are connected with the dialysis machine. Different doses of test-medicaments are mixed into the blood. Then some blood-tests are performed. Athough a lot of sheep have repellent reactions like falling blood-pressure, difficulty of breathing, unrest, staggers and, of course, a lot of pain, the experiments are repeated seven times with changed conditions.

The sheep which didn't die during the tests are killed after the last one, because now they are useless for further research.

The effect of a closed artery

In this experiment the necks of the mice are cut open in the middle, so that the blood-vessels of the neck lie open and now some are contracted with loops.

A clamp is fixed temporarily at the inner artery of the neck so that the blood stream is stopped. After a cut into the other artery a tube is pushed forward to the brain, towards shut the middle cerebral artery. Some mice are infused a colouring substance into their hearts. A couple of minutes later they are decapitated. The brains are cut out and then examined.

In the case of some other mice the artery occlusion takes three hours. There some other special products are examined and a radio-active substance is infused into the belly.

The experiments are finished by the freezing of the mice. Then the brains are cut out and are examined.