CALIFORNIA ZOO APES BECOME “MEDICAL FIRSTS”
— Noell, Scoop and Tria, three apes that live in the San Diego zoo, have made medical history. They “came down” with chicken pox while in their zoo cages during a period last summer when there was a high incidence of that disease among children in San Diego County. Now researchers believe that these three anthropoid apes are the first nonhuman animals to become naturally infected with chicken pox.… Chicken pox has been produced in monkeys by direct inoculation of the virus but there appears to be no references in medical history to natural infection such as this among subhuman primates.… Tria, the chimp, was the most seriously affected by the disease.
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