POSER FOR DOCTOR

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22724, 10 May 1937, Page 10

POSER FOR DOCTOR

SUFFERING ELEPHANTS

POISONOUS PLANT EATEN

AWAKINO GORGE INCIDENT

[by telegraph—OWN correspondent]

TE KUITI, Sunday

Ability to prescribe for ailing elephants is not among the professional accomplishments of most doctors, and one who was asked to do so by the animals' trainer had to confess himself beaten. The elephants—the two which, at large upon the road through the Awakino Gorge, gave a nasty surprise to an Auckland motorist who came suddenly upon them, as was related in the Hkhald on Saturday were in considerable pain when the doctor came along in his car, find the trainer had visions of losing at least one of his valuable charges.

It was the circus monkeys who were the unwitting cause of the pains the elephants suffered. While the monkeys—fortunately complete with cage, else they might have been added temporarily to the list ot the Dominion's fauna —were being rescued from the river bed where they had been thrown when their trailer broke loose, the elephants were left to their own devices. Foliage of various kinds seemed to offer a tasty change from hay and the peanuts and oddments offered by small boys, so they ate it. Then they wished they had nt. Some of it was tutu, which is poisonous.

The smaller of the two elephants was severely affected, and became so weak that it could scarcely stand. AY hen the passing doctor was forced to admit his ignorance of panaceas lor the ills of elephants, a veterinary surgeon was hastily called from Te Kuiti and the symptoms of tutu poisoning were plain to his experienced eye. After sending for the necessary materials he was able to treat the sufferers, with such success that the larger of the pair was able to go through his performance at Te Kuiti on Friday night, and his companion is thought to be certain to recover