Answer: Well, virtually all of the infectious diseases of man of the other animals are not transmissible to the cat, so that, for example, it doesn’t suffer from measles, or chicken pox, or from foot and mouth disease or swine fever. This is an example of the type of natural (innate) immunity called genetic immunity; the genetic constitution of the car protects it from these viral diseases. However, this is not necessarily the case for all the time. Viruses have a disturbing capability to produce mutations which allow them to attack species which are previously able to resist infection. For example, influenza only become common in man and hundred years ago; before that time the virus principally caused disease in animals. And very recently the canine disease ‘parvovirus infection’ has arise, apparently caused by a mutant of the virus (a parvovirus) responsible for feline infectious enteritis (feline panleukopenia).However, the actual virus causing FIE (FPL) in the cat is not pathogenic to dog.
The cat doesn’t ever suffer from a broken collar bone (clavicle), which humans commonly injuries in falls. This bone is poorly developed in the cat and appears merely as a rudimentary slender rod of the bone surrounded by muscle near to the shoulder joint. It is attached to the rest of the skeleton only by soft tissue. The clavicle, however, may serve as a trap for unwary veterinary surgeons. On radiographs is presents an appearance very simile to that of the needle, so that where it is suspected that a cat may have swallowed such an object, care has to be taken to distinguish between the two. Also the cat has no appendix (at the end of the intestinal cul-de-sac called the caecum) so cat don’t suffer from appendicitis. No do cat suffer from hemorrhoids (piles) or varicose veins, disorders which clinicians attribute to the upright stance of humans. Venereal disease is also virtually unknown in the cat.
And, of course, whether because of luck of opportunity or interest, cats avoid the problems associated with drug abuse, smoking and alcoholism! However, our admiration should perhaps be tempered by the knowledge that the cat’s response to cat-nip strongly resembles a drug-induced state, and that in laboratory tests cats have voluntarily resorted to alcohol when subjected to stress in their social relationship!
