48 



SCIENCE 



[Vol. LVI, No. 1437 



Philippine Birds for Boys and CHrls: Richaed 



C. McGeegor and Elizabeth Marshall, 



Bureau of Printing, Manife. 



Just as I finished the last line above, there 

 came to my desk another charming book of 

 nature study written for the children of the 

 Philippines. 



Mr. McGregor (by the way, a former student 

 of Jenkins, Branner and myself) has been for 

 years the ornithologist of the Bureau of 

 Science in the islands and is author of a valu- 

 able "Manual of Philippine Birds." In this 

 smaU book he gives simple, intelligible life 

 histories, mostly aeeompanied by colored plates, 

 of thirty of the most striking birds of the 

 region. Among the most notable is the edible- 

 nest swift (Collocealia germani) with its sin- 

 gular habit of locking the female in its nest of 

 glue during incubation. "When one nest is 

 taken for "bird's nest soup," it cheerfully builds 

 another, but, when in a hurry, it mixes sticks 

 and moss with the glue. Most powerful of the 

 birds of the islands is the monkey-eating eagle 

 (Pithecophaga jefferyi), the chief enemy of 

 the monkeys of the Philippine forests. "Hand- 

 some and cruel, it is large and strong and fear- 

 less. No other country in all the world has a 

 monkey-eating eagle. It is our eagle. His 

 picture would make a good symbol for a flag 

 or a school banner. It would stand for 

 strength, industry, courage." 



For such a purpose it might serve even 

 better than our own bald eagle, "the piratical 

 parasite on the osprey, otherwise known as the 

 emblem of the republic" (Elliott Coues). 

 David Starr Jordan 



SPECIAL ARTICLES 

 THE CONTROL AND CURE OF PARATHY- 

 ROID TETANY IN NORMAL AND 

 PREGNANT ANIMALS 



Normal Animals. — In our fli-st communica- 

 tion on this subject^ we stated that we could 

 keep completely parathyroidectomized "dogs 

 alive indefinitely (at least two months) even 

 when fed daily on a diet consisting chiefly of 

 meat" by means of the intravenous injection 

 of Ringer's solution. We have confirmed and 



1^ Liuekliardt and Eosenbloom: Froc. Soc. Exp. 

 Biol, and Med., Vol. XIX, No. 3, 1921, p. 129. 



extended this work as follows : 



1. If this treatment is maintained for about 

 forty days no further injections are necessary, 

 especially if 



2. The animals are given only a moderate 

 amount of meat and care is taken that 



3. The animals do not become constipated. 

 After about forty days the animals can be 



put on their usual diet containing great quan- 

 tities of meat without inducing tetany. In one 

 animal we could induce the severest form of 

 tetany on the one hundred and twenty-first 

 day (February 22, 1922) after parathyroid- 

 ectomy by feeding an excessively large amount 

 of meat mixed with barium sulphate as a con- 

 stipating agent. In fact, if this animal became 

 constipated spontaneously on its usual meat 

 diet more or less severe parathyi'oid tetany 

 attacks would occur. 



The freedom from all signs of tetany on a 

 normal meat diet after treating parathyroid- 

 ectomized animals for about forty days might 

 be due 



a. To the hypertrophy under treatment of 

 accessory parathyroid tissue; 



b. To the compensatory activity of some 

 other organ or organs; 



c. To the increased tolerance of the poison 

 or toxins responsible for the tetany. 



d. To the return to functional activity of a 

 deranged gasterointestinal tract as part of a 

 general paresis of the sympathetic nei-vous 

 system. We have some evidence on the latter 

 possibility. 



At any rate, it is clear that the cause of the 

 tetany is an exogenous poison or poisons de- 

 rived chiefly if not entirely from the proteins 

 (more especially the meat) of the food. 



Pregnant Animals. — Parathyroid tetany is 

 notoriously severe and fatal in pregnant ani- 

 mals. Eight of Carlson's- fifteen dogs died in 

 "acute tetany within twelve to twenty-four 

 hours after parathyroidectomy." The average 

 duration of life of ten pregnant animals oper- 

 ated on by Werelius^ was 1.98 days. 



We used to date three pregnant animals : 

 One early after conception; two just before 



~ Carlson : Proc. Sob. Exp. Biol, aiid Med., 1913, 

 Vol. X, pp. 183-184. 



3 Werelius : Surg., Gynec. and Obstetrics, Feb- 

 ruary, 1913, pp. 141-144. 



