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Show Doctor Treats 200,000 Patients All With Wings Few medical men have treated half that number of human beings but Mrs. Idella G. Manisera of Los Angeles has case histories in her files to prove that, in the past 30 years, she has prescribed for at least 200,000 patients all birds. "I've treated every variety from humming birds to pea fowls," says Mrs. Manisera, who also happens to be a grandmother. "My father was a bird fancier who had the largest private collection in California. Califor-nia. His birds came from all over the world and often were ailing on arrival. I doctored them so successfully suc-cessfully that my father put me in charge of the 'infirmary.' He bought me the best books on the subject but I discarded all of them and worked out my problems with some small knowledge of medicine plus a generous helping of common sense." Recently, Mrs. Manisera performed per-formed her first bone tumor operation opera-tion on an African gray parrot, belonging be-longing to a Hollywood film director. direc-tor. The entire operation, without anesthetic, took 12 minutes, the patient pa-tient lost less than half a teaspoon-ful teaspoon-ful of blood, and was able to return home in three days. Providing canaries with new topknots, top-knots, after they have been scalped by butcher birds, has become an old story to Mrs. Manisera. "When the scalped area is too large." she explains, "I keep the skull moistened and the skin edges clipped. In three weeks, this treatment treat-ment will grow a new scalp, the feathers of which match the missing topknot. If the area is not too large, I graft a bit of tissue, taken from the bird's wing stretches, onto the skull. A new topknot grows in almost two weeks." Most of her canary patients suffer from digestive disorders, with calcium cal-cium tumors and bone fractures runners-up. Sinus trouble, too, is a common canary ailment, caused by chaff residue in seed dishes. Fifty miles from Los Angeles Mrs. Manisera runs her "Old Ladies' Home." Under the kindly eye of an elderly caretaker, more than 150 birds inhabit the five acres of sanctuary. The inmates include birds whose owners can no longer care for them, others uncalled for at the hospital and a few "unwanted." To shutins. blind persons, and elderly incura-ables, incura-ables, Mrs. Manisera gives these birds and supplies the food necessary to maintain a balanced diet. |