"We dissected a rabbit and a dogfish. I lived in the country and would often bring in specimens when asked, for the biology course, plants and even tadpoles in a jar."
From a 1930s pupil

"I prided myself on gassing and successfully dissecting an earth worm without touching it once! I remember one ploy was to bring a bottle of Airwick in, when dissecting dogfish, to mask the smell."
from a 1940s pupil

"There was this rabbit. Miss P bought him to dissect and then couldn’t do it when it came to it, so he was kept and he lived to a ripe old age. Daffodil, that’s what his name was, and then it was discovered he was male, and it was changed to Daffobill.
I can remember Miss P running round the garden trying to catch him to put him back in his hutch ‘Daffobill, Daffobill, come here’ but he wasn’t having any, because he was after another dandelion."
From a 1950s pupil

"I had to take the rabbits up to the hospital and have them put down, and I hated that job. They were delivered to the school, live, and then I took them up on the bus and had them put down, and then brought them back again. It was awful, getting these nice warm little bunnies out, it was a horrible thing to do. Barbaric.
The girls used to kill the frogs themselves. They put them in an desiccator, with a wad of chloroform, like they do the locusts. It was horrible. They had to skin the rabbits as well, that was awful.
Also the worms were not killed this way, but were put in a large beaker in warm water, I think.
Fish was no problem. Lots of fish. It was very smelly, and everyone who had a cat used to have the fish at the end of it to take away."
from a laboratory assistant, 1950s - 1970s
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