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Columns::October 29, 2001
It takes a village
Research figures show increase for fiscal year 2001
Research professor receives ‘MERIT’ award from NIH
Gearing up for the future
Well-connected: Internet access is now in 96 percent of UGA residence hall rooms
E-mail distribution list being developed for major UGA news
New Peach State Poll surveys Georgians about public policy issues
Linguistics professor examines effectiveness of vernacular speech
College of Pharmacy names assistant dean for MCG pharmacy programs
Newsmakers
Heads up
Campus News
Killer diagnosis
UGA Diagnostic Laboratory performed a necropsy on Carlos, a 280-pound lowland gorilla that died at Zoo Atlanta
By Dot Sparer
dsparer@vet.uga.edu
Pathologist Corrie Brown and a team of four students and several residents gathered around a steel table under the bright lights in the Athens Diagnostic Laboratory recently to do an autopsy--or necropsy, as veterinarians call it--on Carlos, a 280-pound
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The necropsy team included (from left) Mike Watson, necropsy technician; Angela Ellis, veterinary graduate student; Maria Crane, Zoo Atlanta; James Stanton, veterinary graduate student; Ann Strieby, undergraduate veterinary student; and Rita MacManamon, Zoo Atlanta.
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lowland gorilla.
It was an exciting first for the students--and for UGA’s College of Veterinary Medicine.
In spite of the best efforts of zoo veterinarians, Carlos had succumbed to a liver ailment only eight months after he was transferred to Zoo Atlanta from the North Carolina State Zoo. This was a particularly tragic occurrence because lowland gorillas are on the endangered species list.
The hope was that the 31-year-old Carlos, who was born in the wild, would thrive as the reigning successor to the Zoo Atlanta’s beloved Willie B. Furthermore, zoo officials hoped he would take a fancy to one of the three female gorillas in his enclosure and subsequently father a family.
But it was not to be. He died only a month after he was introduced to his three lady friends.
While humans would notice symptoms of liver disease and would tell their doctor about stomach pains, apes don’t show signs of illness before it’s too late for the kind of life-saving intervention available to people.
Carlos’s condition had progressed to the point of no return before anyone was aware of it. Veterinarians at the zoo noticed that he was not interested in food or females--unusual behavior for most male animals. When tests revealed Carlos had a large mass in his abdomen, they immediately started treatment. But to no avail. Carlos died soon after.
It was then that the UGA Diagnostic Laboratory came into the picture. Carlos’s body arrived in a van during the football game with Arkansas State on Sept. 1. Brown says he seemed to be “in great shape” for a middle-aged gorilla--although “the poor guy had a huge liver abscess.”
The necropsy team worked for five hours to determine the cause of the abscess. The procedure followed strict guidelines for examining this rare silverback gorilla. The necropsy involved removing all the organs, weighing and measuring them, and removing tissue samples for study.
Special precautions had to be taken because humans can contract and suffer from many of the same diseases as gorillas. Like humans, gorillas often suffer from aortic aneurysms, so Carlos’s aorta received careful scrutiny.
The team found that the gorilla’s liver was too damaged to have been treated successfully. The abscess was 12 inches in diameter and had replaced much of the normal liver tissue. Apparently the abscess had been developing over some time--perhaps months.
The extensive size meant that Carlos was sick both from the inflammation itself and from the lack of healthy liver tissue. A human with a similar problem might have been saved by removing the abscessed section of the liver, but the post-operative care required was deemed to be too difficult for Carlos to understand or tolerate.
“Extensive diagnostic testing was done to determine the cause of the abscess,” Brown recalls. The testing included histopathology, immunohistochemical staining, fluorescent antibody testing, parasitologic examination, and bacterial culturing. Sections of all of Carlos’s organs were put in formalin, a preservative, and prepared for microscopic examination.
“Some of the students and I looked at the slides,” says Brown. “There was massive damage to all the cells in the liver.”
A large section of liver and other tissue was examined for bacteria in the Athens Diagnostic Laboratory’s bacteriology laboratory. Fecal samples went to the parasitology laboratory, also in the diagnostic laboratory, where veterinary scientists looked for parasites. Several samples of liver tissue were sent to the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta, where investigators were able to look for amoebas by using special antibodies.
Duplicate specimens went to the Yerkes Primate Research Center at Emory University, where pathologists examined the tissues looking for any disorders that might have been missed at UGA.
To date, the only positive result was finding E. coli bacteria in Carlos’s liver abscess. E. coli commonly settle into an organ like the liver after some other microorganism has done enough damage to make that organ a hospitable environment for the bacteria.
Unfortunately, the microorganism that allowed the E. coli to flourish--presumably the one responsible for Carlos’s abscess--was no longer in his liver.
Although it was somewhat disappointing to the necropsy team not to solve the mystery, their efforts were by no means wasted.
“It was a unique experience for all of us to be working on such a magnificent and rare animal,” says Brown, “at once educationally thrilling and emotionally gripping.” |
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