114 S. SCHEIDEGGER 



South Africa concerning the blood pressure of the giraffe. It was 

 found to be extremely high, but as far as I know no increase in 

 arteriosclerosis was observed in that species, at least in the wild. 



Comfort: There is the slight drawback that the giraffe is such an 

 extremely timid animal that even in a zoo it is a nightmare to file 

 its hooves, or anything like that — you have to give it an anaesthetic. 

 It must be rather a difficult animal on which to estimate the blood 

 pressure, unless you could telemeter it. 



Rockstein: The birds which show this atherosclerotic condition 

 seem to be among the longest-lived birds. For example I have here 

 records of a common crane which lived to more than 42 years, a 

 flamingo to more than 22, a stork to 30, and a vulture to close to 60 

 years of age. The question is whether atherosclerosis is indeed a 

 factor in longevity as such ? 



Berg: Prof. Scheidegger's presentation underlines again the 

 necessity of knowing causes of death in lifespan studies. Important, 

 too, is the question of whether degenerative diseases are inevitable 

 with ageing. 



Kershaw: The Royal Air Force has been doing routine post- 

 mortems on its fittest people — those who fly jet planes. Most of 

 these are aged around 19, 20, and 21. In the coronary arteries of 

 these men a high and astonishing degree of coronary atheroma was 

 found. Whether that means that most of us have vessels which have 

 atheroma in them which is of no significance, or whether that 

 particular selected group is more likely to have atheroma, is not 

 clear. 



Danielli: It should be perfectly easy, shouldn't it, to get post- 

 mortems on the average young adult killed in an accident ? 



Kershaw: The difficulty lies in getting comparable objective 

 reports. 



