Lion treated for arthritis with injections of gold

A team of vets has inserted about 50 gold pellets into the muscles of a lion kept at a Rome zoo to relieve the animal’s arthritic pain, the zoo’s chief vet said today.

The Asian lion, named Bellamy, had difficulty walking until the vets operated on him two weeks ago, inserting the 24-carat gold pellets each measuring one millimetre in diameter.