Occurrence in Animals.
These conditions obtain not only in the human subject, but also in animals, though not so commonly.
Thus Sutton figures a right-sided harelip in a slink calf, and mentions a specimen of a harelip in a lamb in the museum of the Odontological Society; and in our museum at King’s College there is a specimen of a right-sided harelip in a kitten with a cleft alveolus, but the palate is intact.
Cleft palate occurs more frequently in animals, particularly in those born in a state of captivity. Thus it appears that from statistics taken ten years ago 99 per cent. of the lion cubs born in the London Zoological Gardens had cleft palates, indicating that either the food-supply of these animals was not all that was requisite for perfect development, or that enforced confinement has a deleterious effect upon the multiplication of the species. It is a curious fact that in the Dublin Zoological Gardens the deformity was rarely noticed amongst the lion cubs, and the reason for this was supposed to be the supply of such food that the mother could eat both flesh and bone. Since the same practice has been followed in London, viz. giving the lions twice a week a young goat which they can eat, bones and all, the proportion of cleft palates in the young subsequently born has become considerably diminished.