Aug. 3, 1908.] Agricultural Gazette of N.S. W, 649 



At times valuable show birds take the disease, such specimens being, 

 perhaps, worth attempts at curing. 



The procedure is to scrape ofE the growths with a small piece of pointed 

 stick, then swab out the mouth with warm water, using a small piece of 

 sponge tied on the end of a stick. The throat should be thoroughly dried, 

 and, using a camel's hair brush, paint the sores with the following, obtainable 

 at the chemist's: — Nitrate of silver, 20 grains; water, 1 drachm. This will 

 usually prevent any further growth, the next thing being to look after the 

 bird's health. The affected ones must be separated from the others, and 

 placed in a clean, dry pen. The houses from which the diseased specimens 

 came should be hme whitened, to v/hich carbolic has been added. All drink- 

 ing vessels and food troughs should be scalded in boiling water and a strong 

 solution of washing soda before being used by the healthy fowls. The runs 

 should be dressed with Hme, and allowed a good rest. Those who have cases 

 of diphtheria or diphtheritic roup, will find doctoring both unpleasant, dis- 

 appointing, and unprofitable, from the small percentage that can be positively 

 cured. 



In connection with diphtheritic fowls, it was long an ojDen question whether 

 such was communicable to man, and about a dozen years ago, it was thought 

 the question was settled in the negative. However, of late years, the number 

 of poultrymen in America affected with sore throats has prompted further 

 investigations by the bacteriologists of that country, several of them now 

 being assured that the disease is communicable. The eminent Dr. V. Moore 

 mentions particulars of over fifty deaths having taken place in both hemi- 

 spheres, attributed by various pathologists to diphtheria, communicated by 

 the presence of diphtheritic fowls. With this question so conclusively set at 

 rest, poultrymen should hesitate before attempting cures on diphtheric fowls, 

 but rather should, on discovery of the diseass, kill those affected, and destroy 

 the carcase by fire. 



The following article on this disease was lately contributed by an English 

 authority to a London poultry journal, and demonstrates the danger of an 

 outbreak of diphtheria, and was prompted by a discovery made by Dr. 

 Eobinson, the Medical Health Officer of East Kent. His attention was drawn 

 to an outbreak of fever amongst the school children in Elham. On investi- 

 gating he found on the premises some fowls which had diphtheric throats^ 

 and that the germs were conveyed to the children by means of the play- 

 ground dust, and caused the fever, the origin of which had baffled the 

 authorities. A cat which had slept in one of the hen's nests also communi- 

 cated the disease to a child : — 



I am not at all surprised to read of the communication of diphtheria from fowls to 

 children. The wonder is that it does not occur more frequently, and doubtless many 

 cases that would be traceable are never suspected of having originated in the poultry. 

 One of the means of conveyance mentioned in the paragraph is open to question, viz., 

 the playground dust — a necessarily dry product — and it can be taken to heart by keepers 

 of fowls that ordinary drjoiess (as we commonly understand things being dry) is a destroyer 

 of the germs of this disease. Then the cat seems to have been the medium of conveying 

 the infection in one case, and though my experience of cats is rather limited — being 



