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pronounced tendency to accentuate the virulence of 

 *' the " disease ? We stop our ears lest we hear their 

 language. 



Although birds are not children, the principles 

 involved in the correct understanding of the diseases 

 of both alike are the same, and it does matter very 

 strongly that people who know nothing about disease 

 should presume to act and speak as if they knew all 

 about it. If the matter were only of less importance 

 one would be tempted to smile 



As a master smiles at one who is not of liis school, 



Nor yet of any school, save that where blind and naked ignorance 



Deliv^ers brawling judgments unashamed 



On all things all da}' long, 



but as it is, a very different sentiment occupies one's 

 mind. 



While we thus see symptoms belonging to 

 septicaemia so casually relegated to diseases with 

 which it has nothing in common save its ultimate 

 ending, it must be admitted that we do occasionally 

 come across it by name. But here again we are 

 generally doomed to disappointment, for we find that 

 the principal characteristic associated with it in the 

 minds of most people seems to be putridity. The 

 only train of reasoning at hand to explain this curious 

 conceit would seem to be this : — one meaning of 

 "septic" is "rotten;" therefore a rotten bird is 

 probably one which has died of septicaemia. To our 

 authorities on avian disease and death this is evidentl}^ 

 quite plain, for does not the dictionary define sep- 

 ticaemia as " a contamination of the blood with 

 putrefying matters " ? and surely is not that enough 

 on which to found a guess ? 



But speaking seriously, this dictionary definition 

 is woefully loose in its wording and is calculated to be 

 intensely misleading to those who have not had any 

 adequate pathological training. Septicaemia is a 



