MEDICINE TIME AT ZOO

Evening Star, Issue 19409, 18 November 1926, Page 9

MEDICINE TIME AT ZOO

MANICURING THE LIONS Birds, beasts, reptiles, and even fishes now ai*l again feel out of sorts and need medical attention. But the clever people who run the London Zoological Society know this very well. That is why, within the Zoo, there is a hospital for patients who cannot talk about their symptoms when they feel ill. When the great, yellow-maned lion goes off his raw, red meat and limps, with a furrowed face, up and down his cage his keeper knows that something is wrong. _ He is not really a very sick lion; but ho needs a manicure.

In the Zoo hospital manicuring a lion is child’s play. The sick and grumpy lion is inveigled into a small cage with the lure of some special delicacy.' Once there, he is pushed into a corner by means of an advancing doer, and his head and, feot_ are caught in a noose. The Zoo manicurist then attends to the ingrowing claws, amd the lion smiles again. When Mr Bear goes on the sick list —usually either with indigestion or eyetrouble—he is a pitiable sight. In dealing with him strategy again comes into play. He is lured to a safe place, chloroformed. and_ operated upon just like a human patient. The hippopotamus is not a goodpatient; he is apt to be peppery. So whem he has a headache or feels that things are not going well inside his armorplated hide he is rather an awkward customer to tackle. t

Rut the staff of the Zoo hospital pit human brains against brute strength. Hippos, are very fond of oranges, so the sick fellow is given a special treat. He’ takes them one by one, smacks his chops, and feels better. Little does he knqwu.that in one of those succulent is a very powerful dose of the medicine prescribed for him by Professor Wooldridge, the consulting veterinary surgeon to the Zoological Society,

When tho wild boar neglects himself to such an extent that his tusk grows into 1 ' the roof of his big mouth it is time to take him to hospital. Once there, he is soon tied up amd gagged ready for tho chisel and mallet, with which his superfluous ivory is chipped off.

People -who have watched the busy beaver at work probably wonder how that industrious little fellow manages to do all his gnawing with only one set of teeth. In his native Canadian woods his incessant building of dams keeps his teeth a reasonable length. But in the Zoo, where he is idle, his teeth grow to am inconvenient length, so: he, too, pays a periodical visit to the dental department. rJ Tho casualty department of the hospital is kept busy by the monkeys. Monkeys, like men, cannot keep from lighting. Teeth and nails soon send fur flying,' and often the vanquished have to be removed for first aid.

Most people regard parrots as hardy, long-lived birds. So they are, but they have their troubles! Asthma is one of them. Polly, with asthma, is popped into hospital. Her complaint makes her irritable and vicious; but she must got her medicine. She usually takes it without knowing it—camouflaged in a dainty morsel. Even tho big aviaries of the Zoo provide occasional patients for the Zoo doctors. For instance, one bird broke a wing in flight. It was not destroyed, but the wing was cunningly set, and , the bird recovered. \

Most doctors will tell you that one of the compensations of tlieir busy lives is the gratitude of their patients. This solace is denied the doctor who makes the sick giraffe well and operates upon the ailing lion. For though many big animals have a strange memory for the faces of the men who attended them when ill, they are by mo means grateful. They harbor a grudge, for they remember the pain, forgetting the benefits that flowed from it.

Fish are also among the patients at the Zoo hospital,. In the aquarium, despite every scientific device to keep the fish population in 100 per cent, health, fish occasionally “go sick.” And when they do they have to bo doctored.

When Mr Rainbow Trout begins to have a sad look in his glassy eyes, when his tail Hops instead of flapping, when ho swims but languidly and seems tired of life, he is ready for hospital. And to hospital he goes forthwith. He is placed in a special tank, into which little daylight penetrates. The water is salty, and he feels a little better. But the fungus, which has battened on his scaly body, is still there. It is removed, and he returns homo to report the benefits of a trip to the seaside I

What was tho strangest patient that ever wejnt into the animals’ hospital at tho Zoo? A difficult question to answer. But perhaps the award should go to tho poor old rhino., who was so very sick that ho couldn’t even protest against his treatment.

This patient just opened his vast cavern of a mouth and said, by the language of the eyes: "Go ahead, you fellows, do what you like, I’m all-in.” So, seeing • how things were, they took a watering can and poured Mr Rhino’s tonic down his throat. Then, as ho was such a good case, they gave him a pound or two of treacle to take the nasty taste away I Big or little, funny or pathetic, it is all the same to the doctors of the Zoo’s population. Getting pills down the giraffe’s throat, trimming the hoofs of the wild ass, or lancing the abscessed gums of a boa-constrictor—it is all in the day’s work.