Atherosclerosis: A Comparative Study

Abstract

The diversity of opinion currently held concerning the pathogenesis of atherosclerosis suggested that a com- parative study of spontaneous arterial disease would prove of value in emphasizing any factor common to this condition in animals and man, particularly as experimental methods have failed to reproduce the exact picture of human atheroma.Florey (1960) has discussed the importance of such a study.but apart from Fox (1923, 1933, 1939) and Ratcliffe and Cronin (1958) there have been few reports of the frequency of occurrence and the comparative pathology of athero- sclerosis in any large mixed group of animals.This paper describes our findings from a fairly wide selection of material obtained from the London Zoological Gardens.We have attempted to correlate post-mortem findings with some aspects of dietetic and clinical history and the serum cholesterol obtained after death.