IT9 



JLbc Stor\> of Bir()-2)eatb. 



By W. Geo. Crp^swei.!,, M.D. Durli., L.R.C.P., F.Z.S. 



(Continued from page 74). 



*-wr;^S I have said before, the use of the microscope 

 ihJ is the only means by which we can con- 

 l—L chisively settle whether any particular bird 

 ^ has died of septic disease or not ; though 



there may perhaps be an exception in the case of a bird 

 in which the internal organs are manifestly healthy, 

 and which shews indisputable evidence of having 

 received from the outside some injury sufficient to 

 cause death. Even here however there is just a 

 remote chance of the bird being in the ver\'' earliest 

 stages of septicaemia. The organs in this case would 

 as yet be apparently healthy to the naked eye, and 

 yet a microscopical examination of the blood would 

 reveal the coincidence of the disease with the injury. 



One is somewhat led to dwell upon this, because, 

 while the microscope shews that some form or other 

 of septicaemia is one of the most prevalent causes of 

 death in captive birds, the internal evidence afforded 

 by the stray allusions to this disease met with in 

 various quarters goes far to suggest that the name 

 alone and its ordinary dictionary explanation consti- 

 tute the chief, or perhaps the only knowledge of it on 

 the part of the "experts." We certainly often see 

 a casual mention of some pathological condition or 

 of some clinical symptoms which rightly belong to 

 it, but almost invariably thereis airily tacked on to these 

 the name of some totally different disease — different 

 in its causation, different in its course and pathology, 

 and only identical at one point — where death strikes 

 both alike. Generally indeed this different disease is 

 either one to which birds are not actually known to 

 be susceptible, or else one against which they are 

 altogether immune ! A more dangerous mistake in 



