Rensselaer Union, Volume 11, Number 18, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 16 January 1879 — Dissecting an Elephant. [ARTICLE]

Dissecting an Elephant.

Professors and students of the Columbia Veterinary College, in Thirty-fourth street, near Third avenue, on Thursday morning dragged the carcass of the baby elephant that died the day before, in Central Park, into their court-yard. Then they prepared to hoist it to their dissecting-room. The great; weight of the animal alarmed them for the safety of their pulleys and hoisting ropes. Reflection overcame this difficulty. At nightfall they had fitted up an inclined plane, placed the animal upon it, and adjourned for the morrow’s work. There gathered yesterday about the body Prof. Edwara C. Spitzka, Dr. Finlay and a score of students. Before fixing the ropes and tackling, they stripped the monster of his skin, thereby saving the hoisting of 100 pounds. Slinging the body upon the table, the students prepared for the autopsy. Two seniors, George H. Berns and Charles A. Meyer, witn a junior, went with sharpened knives at the abdomen, while Profs. Spitzka and Finlay cut and carved about the head. When the examination was finished Prof. Spitzka gave an explanation of the autopsy: “This animal Was about two years old, and had not, of course, attained its full growth. Its weight was about eight hundred pounds. That spongy, honeycombed looking bone contains the. airchambers. You notice that there are two skulls. In the skull of the elephant that went mad in the Royal College of London, 400 bullets were embedded, -yetuhly one of that number effused death. Tne only way to death in my opinion, when firing at the head, is through the eye. “Tqis is the brain;* its weight is five pounds,” the Professor said. Placing a human brain beside it. hecontinuM“The intellectual portion is well developed. The convolutions are more intricate than those of the human brain. The spinal chord Is not as large as that of the horse. The trunk is rich with! nemsand muscles. Theeyeisxmtdier than the horse’s. ’The heart, you

will notice, has two points; In that it differs from all other animals. This shape is Man in. the marine monster, whose shape is somewhat like that of the porpoise. The Complex mass of muscle on the neck, which supports the head, is most interesting. The direct cause of death was pulmonary congestion. The lungs were so congested that they sank in water.” The hide was exhibited. The covering of the feet looked like large rubber shoes. The hide at this part is more than three-quarters of an inch in thickness.— N. Y. Bun.