How science came to rely on the humble lab rat

Since Aristotle, scientists have vivisected, poked, and prodded live animals in pursuit of knowledge , but at the turn of the 20th century, breeding gutter-dwelling creatures to understand our own physiology was becoming a necessity of experimentation. By the 1920s, lab rats were in such high demand that they powered an entire American industry. In fact, some of today’s popular rodent breeds—Jax mice being a favorite—can trace their roots to the Jazz Age.

At Stanford University in California, 500 white rats—carefully bred, fed, and housed—recently have undergone intelligence tests which may lead to valuable discoveries about our mental processes. And in the Crocker Laboratory of Columbia University, some 9,000 pedigreed members of the same rodent family are being studied to learn new secrets of heredity and to gain useful knowledge in combating disease.

In the study of habit, for example, the Stanford experimenters, under the direction of professor Calvin P. Stone, have tested the ability of rats to acquire new habits and to break old ones. For this purpose ingenious devices are employed. One, called the “problem box,” is a screened enclosure from which a door leads to another box containing food. The only way the rat, imprisoned in the problem box, can reach the food is to step on a small platform at the side of the box.

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