W. p. MCNULTY 
837 
Figure 13. — Cardiac anomaly in adult female Japanese 
macaque monkey. The interatrial septum is nearly 
completely absent. View from above through opened 
unilocular atrium, showing free upper margin of 
interventricular septum, tricuspid valve to the right, 
mitral valve to the left. 
SUMMARY 
Nonhuman primates have not so far proven 
to be fertile source of models for poorly under- 
stood human cardiopulmonary disease, at least 
at the Oregon Primate Center. Pulmonary 
arteriosclerosis and sometimes emphysema are 
seen in the lungs of macaques heavily infested 
with, mites. Crib death and hyaline membrane 
disease have been tentatively diagnosed on a 
few occasions. We have seen no immunopatho- 
logical pulmonary diseases and only one doubt- 
ful primary malignancy in the lung. Bacterial 
pneumonias are common, but of no special in- 
terest as models. 
We have not seen immunopathologic heart 
disease. Atheroscelerosis, or at least arterial 
intimal non-lipid thickening, occurs v^^ith age 
but has been of no clinical significance. One 
cardiac congenital anomaly was found. 
These results are somewhat disappointing, 
but perhaps not surprising. The population of 
animals we have been surveying is young. 
Cardiopulmonary disease is uncommon enough 
in young people that even if the incidence were 
similar in monkeys and men we could have seen 
but very few cases in our series — as is the case. 
On the other hand, cardiopulmonary disease is 
almost the rule in old people, but we have had 
no old monkeys at which to look. 
Furthermore, we are not likely even in the 
future to have many aging animals to examine 
unless the pattern of support for primate re- 
search is modified to permit maintenance and 
observation of captive-born animals for periods 
of time so long that before most of the data 
is collected, most of the beginning investigators 
will be dead or too atherosclerotic themselves to 
care any more. Such support would be enor- 
mously expensive and would require continuity 
of protocol and record-keeping over a period 
of time quite foreign to our usual ideas about 
biological research. 
Is it worth knowing, for example, that truly 
old monkeys, inactive captives and over-eaters, 
have coronaries, strokes and arteriosclerotic 
renal failure? If they do, is it worth the long 
wait before carefully controlled prospective in- 
vestigations of the effects of exercise, diet and 
heredity might point with assurance to methods 
of reducing or preventing atherosclerosis in 
man? Or, from a practical point of view are we 
our own best experimental animals for study of 
the diseases considered here? 
It appears unlikely that an answer can be 
obtained from the first 9 years of postmortem 
findings in the population of experimental ani- 
mals at one large primate center. 
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 
Most of the postmortem examinations were 
performed by colleagues Dr. A. Knezevich, Dr. 
C. Maruffo, Dr. J. Palotay, and Dr. H. Uno. 
REFERENCES 
1. Knezevich, A. L., and McNulty, W. P., Jr.: Pul- 
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2. WOODARD, J. C: Acarous (Pneumonyssus simicola) 
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3. Gruenwald, p.: The significance of pulmonary 
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