344 TUBERCULOSIS 



the bacilli are spread through the feces. The liver and spleen are 

 usually affected even if the intestines do not show any tubercular 

 lesions. Frequently, however, the first pathologic changes are found 

 in the intestines. Here the bacilli enter the mucosa, where they 

 produce tubercles which soon degenerate and form ulcers. From 

 the intestines the bacilli, through the blood current, enter the liver 

 and later the spleen, lungs, joints and fascia? of the tendons. The 

 livers in birds dead of tuberculosis are generally much enlarged; the 

 parenchyma cells may show a marked degree of fatty degeneration. 

 The numerous tubercles vary in size from a millet seed to a pea and 

 even larger. These nodules contain a dry, yellowish, grumous, 

 caseous, sometimes chalky material. The mucosa of the intestine, 

 when affected, shows yellow nodules and funnel-shaped tubercular 

 ulcers. The mesentery may show larger nodules. The tubercles in 

 birds differ somewhat from those in mammals, because the degen- 

 eration leads to the formation of a material which is less granular and 

 more hyaline and dryer than that found in mammalian tuberculosis. 

 Nocard and Leclainche describe the degenerated material in avian 

 tuberculosis as a detritus with hyaline blocks, both infiltrated by an 

 amyloid material. Such amyloid material is also found, according to 

 Kitt, infiltrating the intestinal wall. Tubercles in ordinary fowls 

 generally do not show many giant cells, few lymphoid cells, and 

 mostly epithelioid cells and fibroblasts; but there appear to be very 

 numerous giant cells in tuberculosis of guinea-fowl (Numida meleag- 

 ris). In tuberculosis of the liver in these birds, as observed by the 

 author, the giant cells are either round or oval, or they form irregular, 

 apparently syncytial masses with nuclei irregularly grouped in the 

 middle. Tubercular lesions are also frequently seen in fowl in the 

 abdominal lymph glands and on the visceral layer of the peritoneum. 

 Joint and bone tuberculosis are also common and lead to the formation 

 of considerable dry caseous masses; the cartilages and the epiphyses 

 are thickened and corroded in joint tuberculosis. Tuberculosis of 

 the lungs is less frequent in fowl than tubercular affections of the 

 organs named above. Tubercle bacilli are generally found in large 

 numbers in the tubercular lesions of fowl. 



Tuberculosis of Parrots. While quite frequently observed, this 

 is not a true avian tuberculosis, but an infection of these birds with 

 human tubercular material. They generally contract the disease 

 directly or indirectly from the sputum of consumptive persons. The 

 portal of entrance of the virus infecting parrots is generally found 

 in the skin of the head or the mucosa of the mouth, nose, or eyes. 

 In advanced cases the abdominal organs, the joints, and bones are 

 found affected, as in chickens in true avian tuberculosis. 



Fish and Turtles. A pathologic change with the formation of nodules 

 due to the presence of acid-fast bacilli has also been described in fish 

 and turtles. 



