“Sure had a tough time with that Lucy leopard. Begun throwin’ ’em this mornin’. Thought she was gone for a half-hour or so.”
The disease is epilepsy and few indeed are the leopards which go through life without it. In the midst of play, or in the middle of an act—it chooses no time—there come frightened clawings, terrific convulsions and stiffenings which seem to threaten the breaking of the spine, and the torture is on. Nor have all the efforts of veterinaries or doctors or highly schooled menagerie men been able to combat it.
That epilepsy, by the way, has led to some strange results in the circus, and some exciting moments. A few years ago, on a show with which I was connected, we very proudly announced a performing father and son, Old Man and his youngster, just maturing, Dick. They worked well together, looked a great deal alike, and obeyed every command implicitly. Neither of them had ever shown any evidences of epilepsy, and around the circus we hoped that here would be one case where it did not occur.
But it wasn’t. The afternoon was hot, the big top crowded. Out came Old Man and Dick into the steel arena to go through their stunts. But as the trainer gave the command to Old Man, there arrived the first hint of trouble. The big leopard merely remained on his pedestal, staring and “wall-eyed.” The next moment, while the great audience stiffened with fright, there came a screeching yowl, and Old Man went about eight feet in the air with the beginning of an epileptic fit. From every corner of the tent came the announcers, to bawl the news that the beast was only having a fit and that there was no danger. In the meantime, Dick, the son, looked on with excited interest, at last to hop from his pedestal, trot over to his father, look at him, cock his head—and throw a fit himself!
There they were, a trainer and two leopards, the beasts doing everything from turning airsets to back-bends, contortionist poses and flip-flops, the audience yelling for something to be done, and nothing of the kind possible. It was one of those moments when circus men wished they’d never gone into the business; but they could do nothing. The beasts could not be approached; the only thing possible was to wait for them to “come out of it.” This Dick did in a few moments, looked around him with a startled meow, then wabbled weakly toward the open door of the shifting den. But Old Man remained stretched out, his heart apparently stopped, his appearance giving every evidence of death. Hurriedly two roughnecks came forward and bundled him into a piece of canvas, carried him outside the big top, and covered him there, while within was fevered activity that the big arena might be pulled down, and acts hurried into the rings and hippodrome track to cause as much forgetfulness as possible of the unpleasant occurrences. But the excitement had just begun!
The band was playing, the clowns cavorting, and everything moving swiftly and pleasantly once more, only to be interrupted, by a goggle-eyed townsman, who burst under the side wall, leaped across the hippodrome track and tried his best to climb a center-pole as he yelped the announcement:
“Gosh! There’s a leopard loose out there!”
Old Man wasn’t dead at all. Instead, he had regained consciousness, rolled out of his canvas shroud and now was busily trying to kill a dog. Once more the announcers, ushers and every possible recruit from the dressing tent were called to assure the audience that there was no danger while outside the hose cart was brought forward and the stream turned on the combatants to separate them. Finally they succeeded, while Old Man was entangled in a tarpaulin, rolled up in its heavy folds and returned to his cage. He never worked again.
Nor did Dick, his son. The next day both were the victims of another fit, and at intervals of once or twice a week following. At last Old Man lay still again, and this time death had come in earnest. Dick followed him three days later, in spite of everything that menagerie men and hastily summoned veterinaries could do. Epilepsy among leopards brooks no obstacle. Its object is death, and it attains always that which it seeks.
Nor is epilepsy the only thing against which animal men have to contend. There’s colic, for instance, stomach troubles, “bone-head” animals which simply can’t seem to grasp the scheme of things, “star gazers,” or inbred lions afflicted with a curvature of the spine which makes them stare constantly upward, tigers which eat and eat and eat, the only result being that all the nourishment seems to go to their tails, actually weighing them down and sapping their strength until at last an operation is necessary. There have been instances in circusdom where a full eight inches of tail has been amputated before a beast could get any bodily results from his feeding. All in all, the menagerie man has just about as much to contend with in his charges as the head nurse of any big children’s institution. Perhaps more. For in addition to his regular clinic of babies which show up with this, that or the other detriment, he usually is the “mother” of a varied assortment of orphans.