BUEEAU OF ANIMAL INDUSTEY. 263 



The diagnosis of rabies in the suspected animals received at the lab- 

 oratory has been made, so far as possible, by the demonstration of 

 Negri bodies. This method of examination is proving to be very sat- 

 isfactory, and is used at present in most pathological laboratories 

 where rabies investigations are made. 



It is of interest to learn that rabies has been so completely eradi- 

 cated from Great Britain by the enforcement of muzzling regula- 

 tions that the pathologists of that country were obliged to send to this 

 country for material from which to make a study of Negri bodies 

 when the discovery was made that the latter bore a most intimate 

 relation to the transmission and development of rabies. 



DISEASES OF POULTRY AND OTHER BIRDS. 



Routine work has related to the ordinary diseases noted in previous 

 reports. The recent claims of European investigators as to the ultra- 

 microscopic character and identity of the causal agent in so-called 

 chicken diphtheria (roup) and epithelioma contagiosum (chicken 

 pox) give interest to the laboratory findings in certain outbreaks 

 during the past year. In a severe outbreak that occurred among a 

 flock of Game chickens there were found in all the birds, in stained 

 smears from the necrotic material from mouth, nose, and eye, great 

 numbers of short, medium, and long-beaded filaments of Bacillus 

 necrojyhoras. Isolated in pure culture and inoculated on the scarified 

 buccal mucous membrane of healthy chickens, there resulted only a 

 passing necrotic patch which vanished in several days. Associated 

 with the necrophorus bacillus in this disease was the polar-stained 

 hemorrhagic septicemia organism Bactermm avicida, the recognized 

 cause of fowl cholera. So virulent was this organism that necrotic 

 material inoculated subcutaneously into rabbits resulted in death in 

 three days, and the cultivation of the bacterium from the heart blood, 

 liver, and spleen, readily followed. The site of inoculation was 

 marked by caseo-necrotic material presenting the well-known char- 

 acteristics of necrobacillosis, although manifestly in such time there 

 could be no typical development of the " necrophorus " lesion. Pure 

 cultures of Bacterium avicida inoculated upon the scarified buccal 

 mucous membrane of healthy chickens resulted in a thin yellowish 

 scab and death in three days. 



Another outbreak affected almost exclusively the chicks, but two 

 adult birds being attacked. The disease manifested itself by the 

 production of large, drv, cheesy nodules at the base of the comb, 

 about the eyes and angles of the mouth, and on the larynx. The 

 necrotic material in these cases, whether examined in the fresh state 

 or in stained smears, revealed large numbers of coccidial schizonts. 

 All chickens autopsied showed marked evidences of intestinal 

 coccidiosis, while some presented the hepatic form recognized as the 

 blackhead disease. 



TUBERCULOSIS. 



Tuberculosis has lost none of its importance to the people of the 

 country, and recognizing this fact, the Pathological Division has 

 continued its investigations into questions related to its diagnosis and 

 eradication. 



