DISEASES. 59 



the tail stick together, and if the vent looks swollen or inflamed, 

 then the cold in the intestines mentioned on p. 57 exists, and 

 the remedies there given should be applied. If the excretion is 

 whitish-green or chocolate coloured, becoming greener to 

 greenish black, and of a sour, bad odour, if the appetite is quite 

 gone, while the crop continues full, and there is great thirst, 

 then there is severe inflammation of the intestines or stomach, 

 and the bird mostly dies, from whatever cause the disease may 

 have arisen. Treatment : Do not stop the purging, keep warm, 

 give rice water, calcined magnesia (60j, or other mucilage ; when 

 of a dysenteric appearance, accompanied by severe pressing and 

 bending of the hinder part of the body, and even bloody excre- 

 tions, then give from half to one teaspoonful of castor oil (72) 

 with the mucilage ; if the excretions be blackish, half to a whole 

 teaspoonful of red wine, one, two, or three times daily ; also 

 laudanum (65) twice daily ; also a solution of nitrate of silver 

 (27), one teaspoonful twice daily. The sticky feathers under the 

 tail must be bathed and washed with warm water. 



CoSTiVENESS may naturally arise from various other diseases, 

 but also from disturbance of the digestion or from intestinal 

 worms. Symptoms : Continual effort to void ; tilting the hinder 

 part of the body ; ruffled feathers ; melancholy ; and want of 

 appetite. Treatment : Above all things endeavour to administer 

 an enema — that is to say, introduce warm oil (castor oil and olive 

 oil in equal parts) by dropping it into the vent from the head of 

 a pin — by this means, after several repetitions, incredibly large 

 masses of excrement pass away. Also a simple water enema 

 may be used by means of an indiarubber ball with a thin glass 

 pipe having a rounded point ; administer castor oil with 

 mucilage once or twice daily in doses of one teaspoonful. 



Typhus (Infectious Typhoid, called Cholera in Fowls). 

 — Cause : Microcosms and bacteria, also microscopical vegetable 

 parasites, which are very contagious. Symptoms : Want of 

 appetite, sitting about in a melancholy manner with drooping 

 wings ; weakness ; severe purging, with excretions of thin 

 yellowish white slime (slimy or chalky purging), which then 

 become greenish, and soil the belly very much, often accom- 

 panied with vomiting of a thin greenish fluid ; severe thirst, 

 trembling, bristled feathers ; also staggering, and convulsions. 

 Duration, from a day and a half to three days, but often for 



