4IO 



WHALES 



Figure 22j. Hard, spherical and oval masses in the muscles of a Rorqual. [Photograph . 



W. Ross Cockrill, Rome.) 



generally calcified capsule containing what often appears like a yellowish 

 cheese-like substance. Though nothing is known of the causes of these 

 strange masses (Ross Cockrill, i960, thinks that they are degenerated 

 encapsuled stadia of internal parasites), we know that they do not seem 

 to cause much damage. The fact that serious pathological conditions are 

 rarely found in whales was discovered by a team of six veterinary surgeons 

 and eight assistants led by W. Ross Cockrill, the author oi' Antarctic Hazard 

 and some special articles on this subject. During 1947-52, this team 

 investigated 12,000 carcasses aboard various factory ships, and had to 

 reject a mere two because of pathological lesions. 'Whales are probably 

 among the healthiest of living creatures,' he wrote quite justifiably in his 

 Antarctic Hazard, though it must be remembered that sick whales are 

 unlikely to make, or to survive, the long journey to the Antarctic. 



Their good health is also borne out by the fact that they can survive so 

 many fractures. Thus many museums contain Cetacean bones, once 

 fractured and subsequently healed (see Fig. 226), and in my thesis of 

 1936 I was able to cite seventy- two instances of such healed fractures. 

 Since that time the number of knowai cases has grown to more than a 



