CAGE PARALYSIS. 

 By HARLOW BROOKS, M.D. 



WITH A PRELIMINARY PATHOLOGICAL STUDY OF FIVE CASES. 



OF the 113 deaths which have occurred at the New York 

 Zoological Park during the past year, five were caused by 

 diseases of the central nervous system. These cases do not in- 

 clude those in which the nervous diseases were but a complication 

 in some general or local disease, but only such instances as may 

 correctly be classed as primary diseases of the nervous system. 

 Thus we find that the occurrence of diseases in this class of wild 

 animals in captivity is in about the same proportion as in man. 



Of these five cases, two were of cerebral haemorrhage, one of 

 which was of traumatic origin and the other idiopathic. One ape 

 died from a well-defined cerebro-spinal meningitis, in which the 

 exudate approximated very closely that seen in human epidemic 

 cerebro-spinal meningitis. A cheetah died with acute mania con- 

 sequent upon an exudative cerebral meningitis. Two primates 

 died from a peculiar type of spinal paralysis, known and recog- 

 nized among animal men as "cage paralysis." 



I have become very much interested in this condition, since it 

 offered the opportunity to study spinal lesions in a cord of more 

 primitive simplicity than in the human, and with the lesions in an 

 earlier stage of development than we are able to obtain them in 

 man. 



This preliminary study is presented in this crude state since I 

 believe that it presents the question in a general way, and ap- 

 parently eliminates from our problem some by-paths into which 

 the student might easily be diverted from the more important 

 aspects of the question. 



My knowledge concerning "Cage Paralysis" as a clinical pic- 

 ture has been chiefly derived from conversation with Drs. Frank 

 Miller and W. Reid Blair, of the N. Y. Zoological Society, and 

 Director Hornaday, with his associates of the same institution. 

 I have also derived considerable information from conversation 

 with various animal trainers and keepers. Through the courtesy 



