SEVENTH AXXLAL REPORT. 123 



to its ravages, and from such considerations do not hesitate to 

 group them : First, distemper ; second, tuberculosis ; third, 

 actinomycosis: fourth, verminous pneumonia; fifth, Rainey's cor- 

 ]Uisclcs ; sixth, liairHngs; seventh, filaria sanguinus. 



DISTJ^MI'ER. 



The outbreak of distemper, from which our post-mortem 

 records show a total of ten deaths, was beyond reasonable doubt 

 traced to the illness of a small coyote, which was noticed to be 

 suffering from that disease within a few days from its admis- 

 sion to the Park, and w'hile itself recovering from the compara- 

 tively mild course of the malady was the agent of its dissemina- 

 tion, either mediately or immediately, in most malignant form 

 to others of the carnivora, where its ravages were only brought 

 to an end by the most rigid isolation, disinfection, etc. Of the 

 animals infected, fully ninety per cent, w^ere lost. 



In accounting distemper the disease of first importance, we 

 must take fully into consideration the fact that it has not been 

 possible up to the present for any one to write its correct etiology. 

 Hence the difficulty in formulating a rational and successful 

 treatment for the same, even in domestic carnivora, which easily 

 admit of close study and treatment. 



Strange as it may appear, while the mortality from this disease 

 is found to be fully fifty per cent, higher in such of the domestic 

 carnivora as may have suffered from a marked insufficiency or 

 entire absence of meat in the diet, my experience both in the 

 Park and elsewhere confirms my belief that notwithstanding all 

 possible hygienic and medical attention the wild carnivora, or 

 such of them as are subject to this disease while in captivity, 

 will continue to suffer appalling mortality regardless of their 

 meat diet, since this disease even in the domestic dog, like typhus 

 fever of man, destroys life greatly by reason of the rapid pa- 

 renchymatous degeneration of all the secretory and excretory 

 organs, and it belongs to the things most infrequent in this work 

 to recognize organs of animals possessing the characteristics of 

 healthy structure, all being alike more or less advanced in de- 

 generation, regardless of what may have led up to the imme- 

 diate cause of death. 



Parenchymatous degeneration of various kinds in the organs 

 of wild animals may, and undoubtedly does at times, exist for 

 years without giving any appreciable symptoms, but will con- 

 tinue to increase mortality from all general and specific disease 



