Tuberculosis is a perfectly frightful scourge to these unfortunate
captives, causing not infrequently thirty, fifty, and even sixty per
cent of the deaths. This, however, is only in keeping with their
frightful general mortality. The collection of monkeys in the London
Zoo, for instance, some fifteen years ago, was absolutely exterminated
by disease and started over afresh _every three years_, a death-rate of
thirty-five per cent per annum as compared with our human rate of about
two per cent per annum. Here, it would seem, was an instance where there
was little need to call in the bacillus. Brought from a tropical climate
to one of raw, damp fog and smoke, from the freedom of the air-roads
through the tree-tops to the confinement of dismal and often dirty cages
in a stuffy, overheated house, condemned to a diet which at best could
be but a feeble and far-distant imitation of their natural food, it
seemed little wonder that they "jes' natcherly pined away an' died."
But let the results speak. A thorough system of quarantine was enforced,
beginning with one of the Vienna gardens, and finally reaching one of
its most brilliant and successful exemplifications in our own New York
Zooelogical Gardens in the Bronx. All animals purchased or donated were
tested with tuberculin, and those that reacted were either painlessly
destroyed or disposed of. Those which appeared to be immune were kept in
a thoroughly healthy, sanitary quarantine station for six months or a
year, and again tested by tuberculin before being introduced into the
cages. The original stock of monkeys was treated in the same manner or
else destroyed completely, and the houses and cages thoroughly cleaned
and sterilized or new ones constructed. Keepers employed in the
monkey-house were carefully tested for signs of tuberculosis, and
rejected or excluded if any appeared. Signs were posted forbidding any
expectoration or feeding of the animals (which latter is often done
with nuts or fruit which had been cracked or bitten before being handed
to the monkeys) by the general public, and these rules were strictly
enforced.
At the same time the houses were thoroughly ventilated and exposed to
sunlight as much as possible, and the animals were turned out into open
air cages whenever the weather would possibly permit. As a result the
mortality from tuberculosis promptly sank from thirty per cent to five
or six per cent. In our Bronx Zoo, for instance, it has become decidedly
rare as a cause of death in monkeys, no case having occurred in the
monkey-house for eighteen months past. What is even more gratifying, the
general mortality declined also, though in less proportion, so that,
instead of losing twenty-five to thirty per cent of the animals in the
house every year, a mortality of ten to fifteen per cent is now
considered large.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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