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[Carrie McLaren <carrie AT stayfreemagazine.org>]

Chicago Tribune, December 8, 2000

ULTRASOUND TO RESCUE FOR GORILLA;
LINCOLN PARK ZOO HELPED WITH APE'S WEIGHTY PROBLEM

By William Mullen

When Debbie, Lincoln Park Zoo's beloved but aging and decidedly butterball
gorilla began showing signs of deteriorating health, keepers were faced with
a significant problem in examining her.

At 34 years old, 240-pound Debbie has, as do most adult female gorillas, a
significant potbelly. About six months ago, she showed signs of suffering
severe cramping during her monthly cycle. That can be an indication of tumor
growths, but zoo veterinarians didn't know how they might penetrate her
girth to take a look.

Thursday morning, Acuson, a company that makes hospital diagnostic
ultrasound machines, came to the zoo to solve the problem. Acuson employees
came to the Great Ape House wheeling a $500,000 device they call the
Sequoia, the deepest penetrating sonogram--or ultrasound--machine made.

The company designed the machine, said Acuson executive David Amidei,
because of the alarming trend of increasing obesity in America. Doctors have
complained that earlier ultrasound machines, devices that use sound waves to
make diagnostic images of internal organs and fetuses, cannot penetrate
increasingly thick layers of fat on their patients.

About four years ago, the company came up with the Sequoia.

"We've used it [the Sequoia] on whales, and it works," Amidei said as he and
sonographer David Schmitarrived with the machine. "We've used it on really
big people, and it works. Today we're going to see if it works on a
gorilla."

Born in Cameroon in 1966, Debbie came to the zoo as an infant with a group
of other wild-born gorillas purchased to begin a breeding colony. All of the
other gorillas proved successful sires and mothers, but Debbie, though
sexually active, never got pregnant.

Instead, she became one of the few stepmother gorillas anywhere. Zoo-born
babies occasionally have to be taken from their mothers because of maternal
rejection or ill health to be raised by humans for their first 18 months or
so.

Debbie has taken 10 human-reared toddler gorillas and raised them as her
own, making her invaluable.

"Debbie is getting to be pretty old for a gorilla," said Ann Manharth,
Lincoln Park's veterinarian who watches over the zoo's great apes. "She's at
an age where we aren't surprised to see serious health problems cropping up.

Zoo staffers became worried about the pain Debbie seemed to be suffering
each month. The zoo called in Dr. Marc Feldstein, a Northwestern Memorial
Hospital obstetrician/gynecologist who has donated his expertise examining
other apes and monkeys at Lincoln Park.

On Thursday, the volunteer medical personnel set up their equipment in the
ape house kitchen at the core of the circular building.

Keepers, who have been training all their apes and chimps to cooperate in
medical procedures by presenting their arms for injections, put Debbie under
with powerful anesthetics in a nearby holding cage.

Debbie was wheeled into the kitchen on a gurney. Keepers stood by her
sleeping Debbie's head, monitoring her vital signs, while another zoo
veterinarian, Natalie Mylkniczenko, used the opportunity to clean the
gorilla's teeth.

"This is the only real hands-on chance we get with our animals, so we try to
do everything we can, from dental cleaning to blood samples," said Manharth.

She and other zoo officials closely watched a computer monitor on the
ultrasound machine as the doctor and sonographers brought up images of
Debbie's uterus, ovaries, pelvis, abdomen and kidneys, gallbladder and
heart.

Amidei said he wasn't surprised at how well the machine was working. His
company's machine can make images of soft tissue up to 14 inches below the
skin surface, he said, an improvement of older machines that can penetrate
up to 9.5 inches.

Within two hours, the exam was over. The whole thing was recorded digitally,
so researchers can delve into the mystery of Debbie's reproductive problems.

The most pressing issue, however, is Debbie's health. Feldstein was able to
allay at least the worst fears of her keepers before he left the ape house.

"There is no indication of anything seriously being wrong with her health,"
he said. "The lining of her uterus is normal, but there is a small, fibroid
cyst under her right ovary. It's benign, nothing dangerous."

"She should do the same thing I tell my human patients who I see with the
same problem. The next time she cycles, her keepers should give her some
ibuprofen."

PHOTO: Although Debbie, a 240-pound ape, has never reproduced, she has
raised 10 gorillas, including Mumbali, a female born in December 1997.