X-Message-Number: 18184
Date: Wed, 19 Dec 2001 07:03:01 -0500
From: Thomas Donaldson <>
Subject: CryoNet #18178 - #18183

Hi everyone!

Since Mike spoke up about monkeys as experimental subjects I feel I
must add a bit to what he said.

First, there are many different species and the fact that one species
is hard to handle doesn't say much about another. I actually had a 
monkey (a South American woolley monkey, female to be exact) when I
was a grad student in Chicago. She was NOT especially difficult so
long as there was space for her; they can be housetrained but I
will have to say that I gave up on that after a while. I kept her 
in a very large cage, and let her out when I was at home only.

She slept at the foot of my bed. The housetraining problem came
from the fact that she could not hold it in long enough to get
to her cage if she was far away in the apartment: she'd run to
her cage but break down halfway there.

Someday I'd like to have a pair, but in a much larger house so
that I could give them an entire room. The problem when she was
out of her cage was that she was neverendingly curious, wanting
to look into everything. Since she had no idea how to handle 
things, generally something would get broken. Hence the cage.

There is one feature that they have that may become increasingly
important for cryonics: their brains are more like ours than
any other animal. I'd say that that feature will eventually make
them very useful subjects. And if we choose the right species of
monkey then I think we'd have one that would not be so difficult.

I say this to expand on what Mike said, not to disagree with it.
There are monkeys which are too awkward to handle experimentally,
and they should not be chosen. Yes, they also differ in intelligence
but I'd say that the difference is not so great that only a few
kinds would work.

		Best wishes and long long life,

			Thomas Donaldson

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