The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1898-04-09

thin their owners order them to be shot.
A recent veterinary work ascribes this and
many other equine maladles 10 decay or
defects in the teeth due TO age or acct
denis. In the same way old dogs become
emaciated, even when carefully fed. But,
like human beings, all the canine race,and
most of the felidae and bears, seem liable
to forms of tumor, and, unless relieved by
surgery or released by euthanasia, may
meet their death after great misery and
suffering. Nor should IL be forgotten that
virulent sore throat Is often prevalent and
fatal among animals, especially cats.
Consumption and other forms of tuber-
culosts account for large percentage of
the natural deaths of donesticated ami
mails. We doubt if any but the goat hove
complete immunity from it. Cattle cats,
chickens, pigeons, and, in less degree,
horses, dogs. rats and mice are an victims
of the tuberce bacillus. Between these
normal and contagious causes of
death and the violent and devastating an
imal plaques comes the long list of conta-
gious animal disea ses mainly confined to
domesticated animals. Anthrax, the most
rapid and deadly, is perhaps the least COM
mon. Then follows the permanent list-in-
fuenza, now always present and often epi-
demic, and affecting all domestic animals
and probably wild ones also; swine fever,
aphthous fever mot commonly fataD.
CHAMBERS, and in some seasons the fatal
liver rot" mainly affecting sheep and
rabbits, due to a parasite, harbored in
tainted ground and water. Add 10 these the
choleraic diseases from bad water and
dirty soil, and we have forms of natural
death sufficient to account for the total
disappearance of whole species, did not the
generally healthy conditions under which
they live act as a safeguard.
Unfortunately, among these conditions
Is one which does not make for the pre-
servation of health, namely, the tendency
of nearly all non carnivorous animals to
herd together and even when non-rea-
ted, to seek one another's society. Hence
the astonishing violence and fatal results
of animal epidemics. During their preva-
lence the absence of the animal dead is
no longer marked. On the contrary, their
bodies are in evidence. Among the multi
tude of examples collected by George
Fleming in his work on animal Piag-
ners" are eighty-sx epidemics affecting
wild quadrupeds and birds and twenty
seven affecting fish. Among the former
nearly every wild species in Europe is
mentioned, and some in the new world,
including red deer reindeer, wolves,
foxes, pelicans, bears chanois hares,
wild hogs, rabbits, rats, wild ducks, rocks,
gaurs and monkeys.
Disorders usually somewhat rare and
sporadic are capable of developing into
epidemics and claiming victims to disease
wholesale. Perhaps one of most curious
instances is that of rabies among foxes.
This prevailed on the continent during the
years 1880 to 1888. In the canton of the
Naud, in Switzerland, the bodies Of dead
foxes were often picked up and examined,
and it was thought that they We're suffer-
ing from malignant qunsy; but as they
entered villages and bit men, dogs and
swine, which afterward died from rabies.
there was no doubt as to the nature of the
malady. In Wurtemberg and Baden the
fox rabies became so serious that regular
hunts were organized until the animals
were killed off, like the dogs of Lima
under similar conditions
The effect of epidemics among animals
is now so well known that we have dwell
In these remarks mainly on the less str;k-
ing but still constant causes of natural
death. But to those which perish in this
normal course of mortality there must he
added vast number of wild animals
which escape constitutional or contagious
disorders and die of lingering starvation
hastened by exposure. This fact in
great degree justifies the domesticaiion
and appropriation of animals to the SER
vice of civilized man, who in his dealings
with their last years show an ever in
creasing tendency to rectify this aberrant
conclusion set by nature to animal life