Among the apes, with their far superior intelligence, you are on less shaky ground, and can even expect some sort of cooperation occasionally. During the first two years of the zoo’s existence we had both the chimps, Chumley and Lulu, down with sickness. Both cases were different, and both were interesting.

One morning I was informed that Lulu’s ear was sticking out at a peculiar angle, but that, apart from this, she looked all right. Now Lulu’s ears stuck out at the best of times, so I felt it must be something out of the ordinary for it to be so noticeable. I went and had a look at her and found her squatting on the floor of the cage, munching an apple with every sign of appetite, while she gazed at the world, her sad, wrinkled face screwed up in intense concentration. She was carefully chewing the flesh of the apple, sucking at it noisily, and then, when it was devoid of juice, spitting it into her hand daintily, placing it on her knee, and gazing at it with the air of an ancient scientist who has, when he is too old to appreciate it, discovered the elixir of life. I called to her and she came over to the wire, uttering little breathless grunts of greeting. Sure enough, her ear looked most peculiar, sticking out at right angles to her head. I tried to coax her to turn round so that I could see the back of the ear, but she was too intent in putting her fingers through the wire and trying to pull the buttons off my coat.

There was nothing to do but get her out, and this was a complicated procedure, for Chumley became jealous if Lulu went out of the cage without him. However, I did not feel like having Chumley as my partner during a medical examination. So, after some bribery, I managed to lure him into their bedroom and lock him in, much to his vocal indignation. Then I went into the outer cage, where Lulu immediately came and sat on my lap and put her arms round me. She was an immensely affectionate ape, and had the most endearing character. I gave her a lump of sugar to keep her happy, and examined her ear. To my horror, I found that behind the ear on the mastoid bone there was an immense swelling, the size of half an orange, and the skin was discoloured a deep purplish black. The reason this had not been noticed in the early stages was that Lulu had very thick hair on her head, and particularly behind her ears, so that, until the swelling became so large that it pushed the ear out of position, nothing was noticeable. Also, Lulu had displayed no signs of distress, which was amazing when one considered the size of the lump. She allowed me gently to explore the exact extent of the swelling, without doing anything more than carefully and politely removing my fingers if their pressure became too painful. I decided, after investigation, that I would have to lance it, as it was obviously full of matter, so I picked Lulu up in my arms and carried her into the house, where I put her down on the sofa and gave her a banana to keep her occupied until I had everything ready.

Up till now, the chimps had been allowed in the house only on very special occasions, and Lulu was, therefore, charmed with the idea that she was getting an extra treat without Chumley’s knowledge. She sat on the sofa, her mouth full of banana, giving a regal handshake and a muffled hoot of greeting to whoever came into the room, rather as though she owned the place and you were attending one of her ‘at homes’. Presently, when everything was ready, I sat down beside her on the sofa and gently cut away the long hairs behind the ear that was affected. When it was fully exposed, the swelling looked even worse than before, a rich plum colour, and the skin had a leathery appearance. I carefully swabbed the whole area with disinfected warm water, searching to see if I could find a head or an opening to the swelling, for I was now convinced that it was a boil or ulcer that had become infected, but I could find no opening at all. Meanwhile, Lulu, having thoroughly scrutinized all the medical paraphernalia, had devoted her time to consuming another banana. I took a hypodermic needle and gently pricked the discoloured skin all over the swelling without causing her to deviate from the paths of gluttony, so it was obvious that the whole of the discoloured area was dead skin.

I was now faced with something of a problem. Although I felt fairly sure that I cold make an incision across the dead skin, and thus let out the pus, without causing Lulu any pain, I was not absolutely certain about it. She was, as I have remarked, of a lovable and charming disposition, but she was also a large, well-built ape, with a fine set of teeth, and I had no desire to enter into a trial of strength with her. The thing to do was to keep her mind occupied elsewhere while I tackled the job, for Lulu, like most chimps, was incapable of thinking of more than one thing at a time. I enlisted the aid of my mother and Jacquie, to whom I handed a large tin of chocolate cookies, with instructions that they were to feed them to Lulu at intervals throughout the ensuing operation. I had no fears for their safety, as I knew that if Lulu was provoked into biting anyone it would be me. Uttering a brief prayer, I sterilized a scalpel, prepared cotton­wool swabs, disinfected my hands, and went to work. I drew the scalpel blade across the swelling, but to my dismay I found that the skin was as tough as shoe-leather, and the blade merely skidded off. I tried a second time, using greater pressure, but with the same result. Mother and Jacquie kept up a nervous barrage of chocolate cookies, each of which was greeted with delighted and slightly sticky grunts from Lulu.

“Can’t you hurry up?” inquired Jacquie. “These won’t last forever.”

“I’m doing the best I can,” I said, irascibly, “and a nurse doesn’t tell a doctor to hurry up in the middle of an operation.”

“I think I’ve got some chocolates in my room, dear,” said my mother helpfully. “Shall I fetch them?”

“Yes, I should, just in case.”

While Mother went off to fetch the chocolates, I decided that the only way to break into the swelling was to jab the point of the scalpel in and then drag it downwards, and this I did. It was successful; a stream of thick putrid matter gushed out from the incision, covering both me and the sofa. The smell from it was ghastly, and Jacquie and Mother retreated across the room hastily. Lulu sat there, quite unpeturbed, eating chocolate cookies. Endeavouring not to breathe more than was necessary, I put pressure on the swelling, and eventually, when it was empty, I must have relieved it of about half a cupful of putrefying blood and pus. With a pair of scissors I carefully clipped away the dead skin and disinfected the raw area that was left. It was useless trying to put a dressing on, for I knew that Lulu would remove it as soon as she was put back in her cage.

When I had cleaned it to my satisfaction, I picked Lulu up in my arms and carried her back to her cage. Here she greeted Chumley with true wifely devotion, but Chumley was deeply suspicious. He examined her ear carefully, but decided that it was of no interest. Then, during one of Lulu’s hoots of pleasure, he leaned forward and smelled her breath. Obviously she had been eating chocolate, so Lulu, instead of receiving a husbandly embrace, got a swift clout over the back of the head. In the end, I had to go and fetch the rest of the cookies to placate Chumley. Lulu’s ear healed up, and within six months you had to look closely to see the scar.

About a year later Chumley decided that it was his turn to fall ill, and of course he did it—as he did all things—in the grand manner. Chumley, I was told, had toothache. This rather surprised me, as he had lost his baby teeth and acquired his adult ones not long before, and I thought it was a bit soon for any of them to have decayed. Still, there he was, squatting forlornly in the cage, clasping his jaw and ear with his hand and looking thoroughly miserable. He was obviously in pain, but I was not sure whether it was his ear or his jaw that was the cause of it. The pain must have been considerable, for he would not let me take his hand away to examine the side of his face, and when I persisted in trying he became so upset that it was clear I was doing more harm than good, so I had to give up. I stood for a long time by the cage, trying to deduce from his actions what was the matter with him. He kept lying down, with the bad side of his head cuddled by his hand, and whimpering gently to himself; once, when he had climbed up the wire to relieve himself, he lowered himself to the ground again rather awkwardly, and as his feet thumped on to the floor of the cage he screamed, as though the jar had caused him considerable pain. He refused all food, and, what was worse, he refused all liquids as well, so I could not give him antibiotics. We had to remove Lulu, as, instead of showing wifely concern, she bounded round the cage, occasionally bumping into Chumley, or leaping onto him and making him cry out with pain.