1886.] MAMMALS IN THE SOCIETY'S GARDENS. 207 
their nature, whilst others illustrate pathological conditions not 
before described in wild animals. 
In 1877 Mr. Garrod read a short paper before this Society ‘‘ On 
the Mechanism of the Intervertebral Substance, and on some Effects 
of the Erect Position of Man” (P. Z. 8. 1877, P. 50) from which 
the following extract has been taken :— 
“The assumption of a vertical attitude by a creature originally 
differentiated for a horizontal position of its body, has produced but 
marvellously slight inconvenience. If it had resulted in many, man 
could scarcely have survived. There are one or two, however, which 
are most clearly traceable to this cause, including the painful tendency 
to prolapse, antiflexion, and retroflexion of the uterus in women, as 
well as crural hernia in both sexes, and inguinal hernia in the 
male,” 
At the time the preceding paragraph was written, little was 
known, and far less recorded, concerning the abnormal conditions 
referred to by Mr. Garrod. The unusual opportunities which have 
occurred to me during the past five years of investigating diseases 
of wild animals will render necessary a reconsideration of this 
opinion. 
In the first place prolapse of the uterus occurs with tolerable 
frequency, not only in domesticated mammals, but in the lioness, 
tapir, Cape hunting-dog, the pygmy hog, deer, antelope, and others. 
These examples are sufficient to show that it is not entirely attribu- 
table to the erect position. 
With regard to flexions of the uterus, it is a remarkable fact that 
no fewer than one fourth of all the female Monkeys dying during 
the past two years presented extreme examples of this abnormal con- 
dition of the organ. In many the displacement far exceeded any- 
thing that I have seen in the human female. Well marked speci- 
mens of flexion of the uterus occur also in Deer. (For a detailed 
account of these cases and their etiology consult Path. Soc. Trans. 
vol. xxxvi. p. 502.) The frequency and severity of the cases show 
that the flexion is due to causes in addition to the erect position. 
Concerning hernia, it has always seemed to me strange that 
Man, whose inguinal canals are, in the ordinary course of events, 
more or less obliterated, should be so liable to visceral protrusions 
at these spots, whilst Monkeys, in whom the inguinal canals in 
most species remain more or less patent, should escape. It is 
certain that Horses are liable to inguinal ruptures; and I have long 
known that the same defect occurs with tolerable frequeney in Sheep. 
During the past two months I have been so fortunate as to meet with 
two cases of inguinal hernia in Monkeys. In the first, Macacus 
cyclopis, a large | plug of omentum occupied the funicular pouch of the 
left side ; the second occurred on the right side in a Macacus sinicus, 
The details of the condition may be gathered from fig. 1, p. 208. 
This Monkey had also a large varicocele on the lett side. These. 
specimens are sufficient to show that such abnormalities are not 
peculiar to Man. 
Probably most individuals among the civilized races of mankind 
