DISEASES OF TllK DKIKSTIVK TILVCT 12:3 



Treatment. — The most of our exjxM'iniontal work with vari- 

 ous remedies has been with the coccidiaii form. In one out- 

 break, referred to above, 80 per cent of the tirst hatch of 2,000 

 chicks had died. AVe began trying to improve sanitary condi- 

 tions, and administered vai'ious dilutions of permanganate of 

 potash, copperas and carliolic acid. The loss was unaffected. 

 Bv this time tlie writer had examined manv dozen l)irds in the 

 laboratory, and in about 50 per cent of the cases, the Bacte- 

 rium pullorum was isolated frOm the lieart blood, liver, spleen 

 and kidneys, and in every case the coccidian ulcers, described 

 above, were observed. 



These chicks began dying in numbers at about ten days of 

 age, very few had died before that time, and from this period 

 to the end of the third week the greatest loss occurred. After 

 this time but few died, but those having the disease in light 

 form were stunted and did not make satisfactory growth. 

 With this data now before me, I began on another line of 

 treatment. 



During the past ten years I have used, to a greater or less 

 extent, dilutions of mercuric chloric! (corrosive sublimate) as 

 an intestinal antiseptic in chickens. This was used, in this 

 outbreak, in a solution of 1 : 10,000, with sulphocarbolates of 

 zinc, sodium and calcium. The latter had net given the satis- 

 factory results when used alone that it had in treatment of 

 diarrhea in colts and calves. 



Jones (Cornell) has shown that a solution of 1 : 1,000 (one- 

 tenth of one per cent) bichlorid of mercury, will kill the B. 

 pullorum in thirty seconds; a one per cent carbolic acid solu- 

 tion requires five minutes in which to kill this germ ; one per 

 cent creolin recpiires five minutes; three and one-third per 

 cent lactic acid kills it in five minutes, and five per cent car- 

 bolic acid kills it in thirty seconds. IMercuric chlorid is there- 

 fore fifty times as effective against this germ as is carbolic 

 acid. 



Instructions were given for the incubators (containing also 

 the nursery trays) to be tightly closed and fumigated with 

 formaldehyd gas, as ropommond(Ml undei' chicken cholera, 

 before filling with eggs. 



After chicks were hatched they were not to receive any 

 feed for forty-eight to seventy-two liours. as the yolk con- 

 tained in their abdominal cavity will furnish food for that 

 length of time, and an engorgement of the intestines might 

 impinge on this part and interfere with its absorption by press 

 ing on the absor])ing vessels. 



The following solution was to be ke{)t ])efore them from 

 the time of hatching to four weeks of age, and then given 



