PART SEVENTH. 



DISEASES AND TREATMENT. 



CHOLERA. This disease is aptly called the "scourge of the 

 poultry yard," and in truth it is the most rapid and fatal of the ills 

 to which fowls are subject. A bird which becomes a prey to cholera 

 is nerveless, staggers and carries its wings drooped; its feathers are 

 ruffled, head drawn in, and it is overcome with intense drowsiness. 

 The bird has no desire for food, drinks a great deal, a severe 

 diarrhoea sets in from the beginning, the evacuations are thin, 

 yellowish in color, and later, a mixture of sulphur color and green, 

 quite frothy in appearance. Sometimes death follows in one day, 

 and again the bird may live two or three days and perhaps longer. 



There has been no specific discovered for cholera, as the cause 

 does not proceed from a disarrangement of the system, but is due 

 directly to the presence of microbes, which are similar to the species 

 which cause cholera in man and swine. Of course, when the system 

 is impure, lowered in vitality and disarranged from one cause or 

 another, it invites disease as it is favorable for those infinitesimal or 

 microscopic animals, to attack both the blood and vital organs. 

 Enteritis or inflammation of the bowels is often taken for cholera, 

 but there is a congestion of blood about the head in cholera which 

 turns the face, comb and wattles purple, which is unusual in 

 enteritis. 



This disease calls for active and heroic treatment. The sick 

 birds must be moved away from the flock. Give calomel and blue 

 mass in two grain doses, or four grains of blue mass mixed with two 

 grains each of gum camphor, cayenne pepper and rhubarb, divided 

 into four parts one to be taken every four hours. Another remedy 



