DISEASE IN CAPTIVE WILD 
MAMMALS AND BIRDS 
SECTION I 
INTRODUCTION 
" We have also parks and enclosures of all sorts, of 
beasts and birds; which we use not only for view and 
rareness, but likewise for dissections and trials, that 
thereby we may take light what may be wrought upon the 
body of man." 
The purpose of a menagerie under the auspices of a 
zoological society can scarcely be put into better words 
than those found in this quotation from Sir Francis 
Bacon's New Atlantis. Apt as this description of the 
mythical island's collection may be, it is but a reflection 
of the teachings of Plato 's original legend of a perfected 
community, and the practical applications of these teach- 
ings by Aristotle in his Anatomy and Physiology of 
Animals. The history of human study shows a constant 
investigation of lower forms of life, ever broadening in 
its scope, ever more satisfying in its explanation of 
biologic problems and ever increasing in value from an 
economic standpoint. 
If, however, all animals are to be subjected to ''dis- 
sections and trials" there inevitably will come under 
observation many specimens presenting variations from 
the accepted mean or standard or even from an average 
for their kind and therefore approacliing what may be 
called pathological. 
The desire to explain the abnormal has had the effect, 
during the half century since Virchow defined cellular 
pathology and Darwin systematized the world's knowl- 
edge of comparative biology, of directing attention to 
comparative pathology and of stimulating the study of 
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