APPENDIX B. 
KEPORT OF THE PROSECTOR. 
To the President and Directors of Philadelphia Zoological Society, 
Gentlemen : — As long as our present ignorance prevails of medicines 
necessitating purely empirical methods in the treatment of diseases, the 
articles of the materia medica can be expected to relieve but little and un- 
certainly the ills that flesh is heir to, and still less those diseases that afiect 
the lower animals. In the absence of any rational theory in pathology, 
the experience of Zoological Societies has been that drugs are of compari- 
tively little use in relieving really serious troubles, but that much can be 
done in preventing disease by careful study of the animals, and by placing 
them under conditions approximating as nearly as possible to those of 
natures as is compatible with the necessities of a menagerie. My expe- 
rience as Prosector to the Zoological Society convinced me that during 
the first six months of the existence of the Garden, the principal causes of 
death were three : 1st, Improper food, both in quantity and quality ; 2d, 
Effects of Temperature , 3d, 111 constructed cages, wanting in sufficient 
space and deficient is necessary appurtenances, such as water to bathe in, 
trees to climb, soil to burrow in, &c., according to the nature of the 
animal. These defects were such as are incidental to the early history of 
all similar institutions, and have now been remedied by attention to and 
careful study of the habits of the animals, particularly of our native 
ones, whose mode of life was not understood. The present excellent con- 
dition of the animals and the very moderate mortality of the past year 
as compared with the preceeding one, I attribute to the effects of a common 
sense hygienic treatment, the result of careful attention and watchfulness 
on the part of the directors and those officially connected with the Garden. 
The following list gives in tabular form the animals that have died in 
the garden since January, 1875 to May, 1876, with the cause of death as 
