THE ALIMENTARY TRACT 209 
trate and disappearance of the tips of the villi. The third 
observation concerns what is apparently a subacute or 
chronic process although this is not supported by micros- 
copy. Certain birds will have a cast of mucus and 
epithelial detritus rather closely adherent to the wall. 
Under the microscope there may be slight evidence of 
chronic inflammation or there may be little amiss. These 
birds have usually been large ones, and several have come 
from the separate goose pens, not from the open lake 
where many birds are kept. 
The struthious birds deserve a word. They have had 
a great deal of enteritis and mostly of infectious nature. 
Two instances have arisen from bird diphtheria, one from 
cholera and six from what later seemed to have been 
anthrax but was not diagnosed at the time. The character 
of the lesions in the struthious intestine tends to be 
hypertrophic and superficially erosive if not ulcerative. 
The changes are found with greatest clearness in the 
lower duodenum and small coil. 
Constipation. 
Having discussed the inflammatory conditions of the 
gastrointestinal tract we now come to the more or less 
definitely mechanical abnormalities, whether or not they 
depend upon preexisting inflammation, and the subject of 
constipation will claim first attention. In the human 
being this condition is the result of bad habits more than 
any other one thing or all things together, I think it will 
be admitted. In the lower animals perhaps no such thing 
as habit of defecation exists so that one can with more 
certainty hold incorrect food, chronic catarrhs or physical 
obstruction as responsible. Veterinarians look upon 
excess of dry food and irregularity of work and food 
periods as the principal causes of constipation. These 
factors do not hold in zoological collections. As a matter 
of fact constipation is of minor importance in this 
menagerie, but a certain few cases are worthy of note. It 
