h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Hi WingPig - nice guide entry. However, me has a query re Guinea Pigs. Why do we volunteer to be the "guinea pig" for tests? Is this because Poor, Sweet, Cute Lil' Guinea Pigs have been used as lab animals? Me like guinea pigs, dey fluffy & cute and go "squeak" when you say lettuce!

And, according to some Peruvian friends, are quite yummy roasted.



;^)#

Maybe, though I can't understand why. Maybe early vivisectionists were steeling themselves against the horror of being responsible for the death of small, fluffy things by starting on something that would volubly and heart-rendingly protest at being eaten/poked/diced/starved/made to wear corrosive make-up before they moved on to the relatively silent mice and rats after developing their callous, firm and heartless MO. Maybe they were scared of mice and rats, seeing as they ate all their food and carried the fleas that caused the bubonic plague. Maybe guinea pigs were seen as safe as they were domesticated when they arrived in this country. Maybe it all happened by accident - a scientist was looking for someone to test his Device and espied his child, playing in the corner. He considers for a moment, then realises it shows little faith in his Invention if he considers it likely that the child might be harmed or killed. AGain, he moves towards the child. Picking it up, he is about to head back to his laboratory when he hears a chattering noise from a box over which the child was leaning. Looking over the rim, he sees the eager-to-please eyes of the guinea pig staring back at him as it whistles happily to itself. He considers for a moment before replacing the child and taking the guinea pig in place of it. After all, it only cost one pound and one shilling and can easily be replaced. Five minutes later, a series of buzzing and sparking noises end in a long fizz, accompanied by a diminishing terrified squeal. Maybe scientists used dead guinea pigs in experiments as they were too big to flush down the toilet when they died and needed to be disposed of in some way to avoid upsetting the children.

Guinea Pigs are obviously incredibly provocative, having checked out the stormin' scary Savage Guinea Pigs in the next conversation.

Thank you for your suggestions concerning the possible derivation of guinea pigs as volunteers, Wingpig. But I don't quite think we've nailed this one down to the killing box hard enough (sowwy, scared at an early age by Arthur Hailey & Richard Adams...)....

On the one hand we have the undomesticated, fearsome guinea pigs of yore (although the name alone *kind* of undermines the saber-toothed image of a giant squeaky rodent); and on the other we have the cute and apparently tasty balls of fluff that most kids know & love (but NOT usually to eat).

"I'll be your guinea pig..." hmmm - should I take this to Ask H2G2?

Yeah.

All righty then - brevity being the soul of wit I shall be brief. Join me in Ask H2G2 to discover the derivation of guinea pig... Still a cracking Authorised Guide Entry, Wingpig - look forward to your next creations.

Cheers. I'm going to take a dictaphone to the nearest pet city so that I can link a nice squeak from the original userpage.

I'm sure I read somewhere that penicillin kills guinea pigs. If this is true, what did they test the stuff on before trying it on people?
And how useful are animal experiments anyway?

Surely penicillin only kills those few Gram-negative bacteria that have not yet developed resistance to it? Should I try the questions page of New Scientist or would they tell me to bugger off and stop being so stupid?
Do we have any research scientists on the site willing to enlighten, or would they be Revealing Too Much if they can categorically state that disruption of the 70kDa ribosome has a fatal effect on guinea pigs?

Apparently they develop some sort of toxin in response to penicillin - I guess this is similar to the penicillin allergies that occur in some humans.

quote - Clostridium difficile (Antibiotic toxicity and dysbacteriosis) - A fatal enterocolitis caused by clostridial toxin after administration of narrow spectrum drugs. Clindomycin, lincomycin, erythromycin, penicillin, bacitracin, dihydrostreptomycin, and ampicillin cause disease 1-5 days after administration.

The above quote is from http://www.afip.org/vetpath/POLA/99/1999-POLA-Cavia.htm

Guinea Pigs are excellent lab subjects for two reasons. Of all mammals, there are only three that cannot make their own Vitamin C, Humans and Guinea Pigs are the exceptions (I am thinking the other is Orangutans). The other reason is that their skins are very similar in structure and behavior to human skin.

The reason they are not used too often is difficulty of inbreeding. That is that most strains of animals for testing are highly inbred. It reduces loose ends by creating uniformity of reaction due to minimal genetic variation. The common standard is 30 generations, and this is somewhat more difficult for a cavvies due to longer gestation and maturation times for guinea pigs compared to rats & mice. I think there is in fact only one such strain, two at most.

g.p.'s nly have small ears so they turn up at experiments looking for beer