6o8 



THE BOOK OF POULTRY. 



Enteritis, Contagions. — Simple enteritis or in- 

 flammation of the bowels is sometimes found in 

 poultry on post-mortem examination, and may, 

 of course, occur in them from irritating food, as 

 in other animals ; but they can stand more than 

 most creatures in the way of diet, and it is very 

 uncommon, and not very distinct in symptoms 

 from other complaints during life. Most cases 

 found have occurred from corrosive /i:?wOT«(q. v.), 

 such as arsenic, phosphorus, or unslaked lime. 

 But there is a highly contagious form of enteritis 

 of which destructive outbreaks have occurred on 

 several occasions, and which has been described 

 by Dr. Klein. '^ Being called in, he states, to 

 investigate a contagious malady from which 400 

 birds had died on a poultry farm at Orpington 

 between March 1888 and March 1889, he found 

 a clearly marked disease entirely distinct from 

 cholera in several obvious respects, though there 

 was some general resemblance in others, so that 

 the complaint appears to have been observed in 

 America and confounded with cholera on several 

 occasions years before. As already described on 

 page 9, on the farm attacked four or five hundred 

 birds had been kept on two acres of land. The 

 fowls did not appear ill till twenty-four or thirty- 

 six hours before death, but from his experiments 

 in feeding and inoculating the poison, these 

 earliest symptoms do not appear to occur until 

 three or four days after the first actual infection. 

 The birds become inert, but not sleepy as in 

 cholera ; and the diarrhoea, which is the 

 clearest outward symptom, is yellow, or the 

 colour of thin mustard, instead of being 

 greenish or white. Great thirst is always pre- 

 sent, with often dark comb, staggering, and 

 ruffled plumage. Post-mortem examination 

 showed that the spleen and liver were greatly 

 enlarged and softened, the heart filled with 

 stagnant blood, and the intestines inflamed ; 

 and the evacuations, intestines, blood, and much 

 of the above structures swarmed with a bacillus, 

 which could be cultivated by the usual bacterio- 

 logical methods on gelatine or in broth, and 

 when so cultivated, reproduced the disease by 

 inoculation into healthy fowls. The rapid spread 

 of the contagion was obviously accounted for by 

 the fowls eating grass or other food contamin- 

 ated by the evacuations of diseased individuals. 

 Thus the disease is readily communicated, and 

 in point of fact outbreaks due to imported birds 

 have been observed in Ireland and elsewhere. 



No treatment was found to cure birds once 

 attacked ; and although more recently we have 

 reason to believe that some genuine cases have 



* " The Etiology and Pathology of Grouse Disease, Fowl 

 Enteritis, and some other Diseases Affecting Birds." By E. 

 Klein, M.D., F.R.S. London : Macmiilans. 



been pulled through, the disease is so fatal, and 

 so easily spread by fowls apparently well, that 

 we do not think direct treatment desirable, even 

 if such results should be confirmed.* Effort 

 should rather be directed to stamp out the 

 epidemic, by instantly separating all diseased 

 and suspected birds, and removing the others to 

 clean ground ; watching these carefully, and re- 

 moving at once every fresh one that is noticed 

 with thirst and fluid diarrhoea ; cremating all 

 dead bodies ; and disinfecting the runs with 

 quicklime, afterwards dug into the ground, and 

 leaving them empty for some time. 



The next thing is to protect the remainder. 

 Terrible as this disease is in its effects, an un- 

 justifiable use has been made of it by several 

 writers who seem more really anxious to oppose 

 poultry-farming than to give useful information. 

 Fowl enteritis is not the necessary result of 

 even over-crowding, since it never appeared in 

 many cases we know of where crowding had 

 long been worse than even on this farm at 

 Orpington ; and on the other hand, it has been 

 introduced by infected birds and proved ruinous, 

 where there was no crowding at all, as in 

 Ireland. Those who so greedily seized upon it 

 as a mere argument to serve their purpose, have 

 (so far as we have noticed) carefully abstained 

 from stating that Dr. Klein succeeded in pre- 

 paring 2, protective anti-toxin or vaccine. Dr. Klein 

 grew his cultures of the bacillus in faintly alkaline 

 broth kept at 35° to 37° C (95° to qS'' F). He 

 heated some of this culture to 55° C (131° F) for 

 fifteen minutes, and then injected 5 cubic centi- 

 metres of the preparation into eight healthy 

 birds All of these were quiet and off their feed 

 by the sixth to the eighth day, but had no 

 diarrhoea ; and in a {&\'^ days apparently re- 

 covered. They were then inoculated with the 

 virulent culture, with two untreated fowls to check 

 or "control" the experiment. The two controls 

 both died ; and one of the inoculated also died 

 with enlarged spleen and showed bacilli ; but 

 the other seven were unaffected. This being 

 not quite successful, a virulent culture was next 

 similarly heated for twenty minutes, and 5 c.c. 

 again injected into eight healthy fowls. All 

 were quiet and off food on the sixth and seventh 

 days, but had no diarrhoea, and by the tenth 



* Up to the time of writing we have been unable to obtain 

 such definite information as we could wish, either as to the 

 results or the treatment ; it is not, indeed, often that experiments 

 can be made. In one case we believe the treatment was the 

 administration of I drop Calvert's No. 4 carbolic acid every 

 six hours, with chlorodyne, raw eggs, and tonics. Probably 

 greater success might be obtained by the administration of 

 creofoim, a compound of formaldehyde and creosote. This 

 latter is a new drug, neither poisonous nor irritating, which may 

 prove useful in many intestinal complaints. It is insoluble in 

 water, but can be given in brandy. 



