25 
The Report of the Laboratory of Comparative 
Pathology for the Year Ending February 28, 
1914. 
The past year has been one of moderate activity in 
the laboratory as far as concerns autopsies upon animals 
dying in the collection. The total number dying, 293, 
is lower than in the previous three years. Investiga- 
tions have been continued by Dr. Weidman and myself. 
Dr. Weidman proceeds with his observations upon the 
spiroptera of parrots and upon new species of worms 
found at this laboratory. He is also investigating one 
of the higher bacteria which was isolated from a trans- 
plantable tumor of a macaw. 
I have been occupied in investigating the diseases of 
the thyroid gland in wild animals and read my obser- 
vations at the Pathological Society in February of this 
year. In my studies it was shown that practically all 
the pathological conditions seen in the human thyroid 
in disease could be found also in wild animals, even 
those associated with exophthalmic goitre were found, 
but we can record no exophthalmos (during life) among 
wild animals. It has also been discovered that Primates 
(381 specimens), Rodentia (140) and Accipitres (109) 
showed no thyroid changes, while Carnivora (282) showed 
fourteen cases of thyroid disease. There was respect- 
ively one case among the Ungulata (197), Passeres (665), 
Galli (113) and Psittaci (457) while among the Mar- 
supialia (78) there were two cases. These studies have 
unfortunately thrown no light upon the causation of 
goitre. 
Further investigation is on foot to study the death 
of three kites which died from a mycotic esophagitis 
and to produce a test for tuberculosis in birds. At the 
suggestion of Dr. Penrose I am preparing a tuberculin 
from bird tubercle bacilli to be used for instillation into 
the conjunctiva. In a short time the diseases of the 
liver and kidney will be statistically and pathologically 
studied following the methods used in the thyroid gland 
work. 
