From:
sukieferret
Date: 2002-06-04 09:34:00 UTC
Subject: Re: Cancers and illness in our ferrets
>That processed
> food (especially those containg sugar of any kind, yes this
>includes rice) are actually a lot of the culprit here or is it that just
>more people are coming out of the woodworks about these
>illnesses?
You have an excellent point there:
To find an illness a person has to look for it.
Years back there often simply was not vet care available for
much beyond neutering, so folks had no idea and could not
know what went on.
Even today just think about how many times we read of clear
cases with common ferret illnesses and the people or the vets,
or both simply have not heard of these problems or of the
treatments for them. Unusual? Not by any means, right? That's
NOW, with multiple vet texts, internet references, seminars, vet
school courses, conferences, vet videos, etc. Back then there
weren't all those ways to learn. Heck, the first edition of James
Fox's _Diseases of the Ferret_ which (as far as i know -- so correct me if you know otherwise) was the
first ferret veterinary text didn't come out till 1989 if memory
serves, and that's only 13 years ago.
With no one knowing what the heck they were seeing how could
they begin to talk about the illnesses? In the FML we'd discuss
symptoms, but we didn't have a vet member till Dr. Bruce
Williams joined and that was maybe about 10 years ago, plus
the size was small untill something like 5 to 7 years ago, with
very few members.
Memories can be faulty as can estimates which is why firm
records of things like ages are so important.
One more quick note: the highest ages reached are going to
likley be sporadic ones, anyway, and therefore not of much use,
so what are going to be most telling will be the longeviity mode
(most common) range, or the average longevity, or both.