TWENTY-FOURTH ANNUAL REPORT 83 
In a zoological park, this infective material, consisting of 
eggs and embryo of parasitic worms, is necessarily confined to 
a small or limited area; hence it will be seen that small ranges, 
corrals, and cages are naturally areas of concentrated infection. 
Therefore the mortality of wild animals and birds due to para- 
sitie worms, especially those not requiring an intermediate host, 
will always be a constant factor in the death-rate of all large 
collections of wild animals. 
Preventive medicine, through the systematic treatment of 
the animals by means of administering vermicides in the food at 
certain regular intervals, has been of the greatest benefit in 
keeping the animals comparatively free from those intestinal 
disorders so frequently produced by intestinal parasites, or by 
lowering their resistence to such an extent that they are more 
susceptible to some serious contagious or infectious disease to 
which they might be exposed. 
Careful observations were made covering the period of the 
influenza epidemic during the past winter to learn if a similar 
affection could be recognized in any illness which might appear 
among our animals. If such an affection would occur, it was 
natural to expect its appearance among the Primates, on account 
of their closer relationship to the human species. 
It will be of interest to report in this connection, that the 
health of this collection has never been so good as during the 
past winter, and no case of illness has occurred among the 
primates which simulated in the slightest degree the human 
affection recognized as influenza. 
Our chief loss during the year was the female African 
elephant Sultana, which was destroyed after it was found she 
was unable to stand as a result of an obscure injury to the 
left hing leg, and other complications. Early in November 
Sultana was found one morning to be painfully lame in the 
left hind leg, and exhibiting an enormous swelling around and 
below the stifle joint. At the time, a fracture or dislocation of 
the patella bone was suspected, but owing to the enormous 
swelling about the joint manipulation of the part was difficult, 
and we were unable to detect any evidence of crepitation which 
would indicate fracture. While the swelling increased and 
involved the entire limb below the stifle joint, the lameness 
seemed to improve somewhat under the daily treatment of hot 
and cold water irrigations by means of a hose followed by the 
