EFFECT OF ALCOHOL ON FOWL 167 



of matings 1568, 1536 and 1575 only such untreated control 

 birds are included in any column of the table as were on the 

 plant at the beginning of this alcohol experiment. In other 

 words, no birds from these matings which were sold in the fall 

 of 1914, or died before that time, are here regarded as having 

 been in the experiment, even as controls. For some other 

 purposes these birds may be, and are used as controls. 

 From this table it appears that: 



1. Out of the 15 treated birds with which the experunent 

 started the only ones which had died at the end of 15 months 

 were those which were killed by an overdose of the reagents 

 used (cf. I, p. 166). 



2. Out of 24 ( = 39-15) untreated control sisters of the treated 

 birds, which started in at the same time and have been kept 

 on the plant until they died or to the present time, 16 have died, 

 or 41.0 per cent of the whole number which started or 66.7 per 

 cent of the 24 which were given every opportunity to live through 

 the experiment if they were able to do so. 



It is obvious from these figures, if we take them at their face 

 value, that the mortality so far has been much heavier among 

 the untreated control birds than among the treated. There is 

 nothing which would gainsay such conclusion to be found from 

 an examination of the causes of death of the 17 control birds 

 which died. The pertinent autopsy data in this connection 

 are given in table 2. The diagnoses are based on symptoms 

 and lesions described in detail by Pearl, Surface and Curtis (30. 

 This and other citation numbers in this paper refer to the bibli- 

 ography at the end of I). 



From this table it is seen that out of the 16 deaths from non- 

 accidental causes 9 were due to diphtheria or diphtheritic roup, 

 either with or without other complications; 2 were due to visceral 

 gout; 2 had their original causes in derangements of the oviduct; 

 and finally diarrhea, pernicious anemia, and peritonitis, probably 

 not of o\'iducal origin, each caused one death in the group. 



Roup has existed in endemic form on the Alaine Station Poultry 

 plant for many years, as on most other plants where for experi- 

 mental, or any other purpose, birds are brought in from outside 



