SESSION IV 189 DUNHAM: Did you decide these died from desiccation or from thermal burns? I wasn't clear what your conclusion was. DONALDSON: Desiccation, because the burns weren't serious enough to cause death. UPTON: , But the burns prevented them from feeding. DONALDSON: Yes, it's the cause and effect relationship. UPTON: They couldn't eat and therefore they couldn't maintain their food balance. ROOT: This was obvious in the autopsy, too? CONARD: Could this have been anorexia fromradiation, loss of appetite, so that they didn't want te eat any fish? BRUES: This is the old problem that plagues the pathologists and the epidemiologists. What is the cause of death? DONALDSON: That's right. FREMONT-SMITH: Multiple causality enters into it. DONALDSON: Surely, Multiple causes that complicate this, Of course, the real differences that we have to come to grips with now involve the... AYRES: May Linterrupt for a second? Did you see auy signs of birds whose tail feathers or wing feathers were lost later on because of beta burns? DONALDSON: CONARD: No, we did not. The feathers would protect the skin from beta burns. AYRES: I'm just wondering whether the feachers themselves might have been burnt? DONALDSON: The dead birds in the previors illustration had received thermal burns to the feathers extensive enough to prevent their flying and obtaining food and water,