POULTRY. 585 



of a typhoid dysenteric character, from the outset. The remedial treatment thus far experi 

 mented with has not been encouragingly successful, inasmuch as most of those who have 

 suffered from its presence among their stock, have acquired no knowledge of its cause, or 

 what mode is best to adopt as a curative. Meanwhile the malady is of so violent a character 

 that when it comes upon their premises, their birds die by scores, before they can decide 

 what is the real difficulty, or how they may contrive to relieve them. &quot;We have no doubt 

 that bad locations have much to do with this trouble. And we seriously opine that if seen to 

 at once in most places, and (as in Mr. Todd s case) treated vigorously as for malignant 

 dysentery, or inflamed diarrhoea, the birds may be saved, in many instances. 



But as in all other cases of fowl disease which we have herein noted we claim that if 

 the chicken premises are kept uniformly cleanly and sweet, if the hen-houses are not over 

 crowded and are daily well -ventilated, if the stock is fed judiciously with sound and varied food, 

 if the poultry is kept free from lice, and are housed comfortably in cold and bad weather, 

 and pure fresh water is furnished them, always there will be little or no &quot; chicken cholera &quot; 

 about. 



If we have had this distemper in New England at all, it has not been of a serious char 

 acter. It may be that our climate here favors us in this respect. But all the complaints that 

 reach us come from the west and south, and there this plague has been very troublesome and 

 severe. Wherever our attention has been called to this illness, we have, upon examination, 

 found the ailment to be a phase of slow fever, at first, and subsequent virulent diarrhoea. 



In these instances the birds have gone down gradually, but constantly, in condition, for 

 weeks from the beginning. Up to within a few days or hours before death, they have eaten 

 well evincing continual thirst. Then diarrhoea has set in sharply, and they have expired. 

 I consider this clearly a phase of dysenteric roup and for this only should I treat the affec 

 tion, if it should exhibit its symptoms in my runs. 



But there exists some local natural cause for this wholesale destruction of domestic birds 

 in certain districts, unquestionably. This malady is largely fatal in its work, and in the west 

 it is clearly of a destructive character. It is said by those who have examined diseased yards 

 that the cause has been found to have been generated in the place or its immediate vicinity 

 (in several cases) where the trouble was most fatally severe. And this ruin was occasioned 

 by the miasmatic, putrid, filthy condition of the soil (and neighborhood) where these fowls 

 had long been kept. 



Now the cause for this generation of malignant disease should not be suffered to exist at 

 all. Fowls cannot be kept in or upon such infected disordered foul spots. And the remedy 

 to begin with must be to remove the living stock beyond the baleful influence of such 

 miasmatic death- districts, or apartments, or else remove the putridity, filth, and poisonous 

 deposits (whatever they may be) from the fowl premises, and their neighborhood. The 

 trouble is no doubt brought about, in the first instance, from the exposure of the stock to 

 infested, swampy, or foul grounds and runs or by keeping the birds in contiguity to such 

 miasmatic or befouled premises. This disorder exhibits many of the symptoms which are 

 premonitory in human beings afflicted with malarial cachcxia such as a paling and sallow- 

 ness in the features, loss of flesh and condition, rapid diminution of muscular strength, 

 general nervous lassitude and prostration, and the liability at any hour to sink suddenly 

 under any incidental disease that may assail the subject, at such a time. The approved 

 remedy for this affliction to humanity is the removal of the patient entirely from the vicinity 

 where the affection originates to a purer atmosphere, and uncontaminated soil. And, 

 subsequently, to restore the stricken bodily system through wise treatment, good food, and 

 ostaining tonics. 



A similar method would, in our judgment, unquestionably recruit a body of domestic 

 fowls but the suggested remedy should be seasonably applied. And the sooner this change 



