26 NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY OF DUBLIN. 



serve as a starting point for further investigations. There are instances 

 on record of goitre in the following animals : — lion, hyena, dog, cat, 

 pig, horse, cow, sheep, goat, mule, monkey, racoon, and mouse. 



A small hyena died in the Surrey Zoological Gardens, 14th January, 

 1 846, with an enormous goitre in his throat ; the animal had lived 

 twenty-four years in those gardens ; it had arrived in England quite 

 young in the year 1820. The stuffed skin and the skeleton of this 

 animal are in the Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons, London. 

 Besides the fact of the goitre in this hyena, it is interesting to he able 

 to know its age at the time of death ; because the duration of life of sav- 

 age animals, either in their wild state or in confinement, is a subject upon 

 which there is a great want of precise information. 



The thyroid glands have occasionally been found very much en- 

 larged in young lion cubs. In April, 1864, Dr. Crisp exhibited to the 

 Pathological Society of London (" Transactions," vol. xv., p. 260) the 

 thyroid glands of three lion cubs — one belonging to one lioness, and 

 two to another. In each cub the glands were enlarged to twenty times 

 their natural size, and he believed that death was occasioned by their 

 pressure upon the recurrent laryngeal nerve at the time of birth. The 

 cubs were well formed, of the natural weight, and all other parts, ex- 

 cept the thyroids, were normal. On another occasion, Dr. Crisp found 

 a similar affection in a young lion cub. Another young lion lived to 

 the age of four or five months with very large thyroid glands. Dr. 

 Crisp observes at the close of his remarks, that he has not been able to 

 find a well authenticated case of greatly enlarged thyroid glands in a 

 child, at birth ; but congenital goitre has been occasionally noticed ; 

 for example — Hedenus [Hasse Pathol. Anat., Syd. Soc, p. 386] has 

 presented to the Museum of Leipsic a preparation in which the enlarged 

 thyroid gland of a new-born infant is seen engirding the whole tube of 

 the windpipe — strangulation was the consequence. There are examples 

 also of intra-uterine goitre in the human foetus of five and a half 

 months, and other instances in which such enlargements in infants at 

 birth have interfered with parturition, by preventing the proper flexion 

 of the head upon the thorax, and caused the death of the child. The 

 title of the Paper, of course, confines me to the subject of goitre in ani- 

 mals, and I only digress for the purpose of illustrating what I have to 

 say. The diseases of animals are in many cases so closely connected 

 with those of man, that it is almost impossible to understand those of 

 the lower class without frequent reference to those of the higher. Con- 

 genital or acquired goitre has not been noticed in the few lion cubs that 

 have died in the Eoyal Zoological Gardens in Dublin. Out of the 

 seventy lion cubs which have been born in the Dublin Gardens from 

 the year 1857 up to the present date (February, 1870), but six have 

 died at or soon after birth. Of three of these I have examined the 

 thyroid glands, with a view of ascertaining if they were diseased, and 

 if not, their natural weight and size, so as to have some standard to 

 which to refer in cases of alleged enlargement. The normal size of 

 these glands in young cubs is very small ; in one cub, a female, which 



