POULTRY DISEASES AND THEIR REMEDIES. 1123 



Chicken Cholera is one of the " germ" diseases, and these 

 germs are undoubtedly generated by filth in some form or other. 

 D. E. Salmon, D. V. M., veterinarian of the department of ag- 

 riculture, says : " These germs under ordinary conditions must 

 be taken into the stomach with the food or drink to produce 

 their effects, and consequently, by a proper use of disinfectants, 

 the disease may be almost entirely prevented. Fowls may also 

 be made insusceptible to cholera by vaccination with a feeble 

 virus, or by inoculation with a diluted virus. A few investiga- 

 tions to determine the best method of putting up the virus, and 

 there is no doubt but that it could be sent to every part of the 

 country in such form that any one could use it." 



The usual symptoms of cholera are thus described by A. J. 

 Hill in his " Treatise on Chicken Cholera :" " The fowl has a 

 dejected, sleepy, and drooping appearance and does not plume 

 itself, is very thirsty, has a slow, stalking gait, and gaps often. 

 Sometimes the fowl staggers and falls down from great weakness. 

 The comb and wattles lose their natural color, generally turning 

 pale, but sometimes they are dark. There is diarrhoea with 

 greenish discharge, or like sulphur and water ; afterwards it be- 

 comes thin and frothy. Prostration comes on, the crop fills 

 with mucus and wind, and at last the food is not digested, 

 breathing is heavy and fast, the eyes close, and in a few hours 

 the fowl dies." 



Should your fowls commence to die off " kind o' sudden 

 like," and you have any doubts about the nature of the disease, 

 make an examination of the internal organs of the defunct 

 fowls, and that will settle the matter. I have made a post- 

 mortem examination of several fowls that died from cholera, 

 and I always found the crop filled with wind and sour food; 

 the gizzard sometimes contained sour, half digested food, and 

 sometimes the contents seemed dried up; the intestines very 

 much inflamed, and generally half filled with a greenish matter; 

 blood very dark and thick; heart generally enlarged ; liver always 

 very much enlarged, in some cases twice its natural size, of a 

 dark green color, sometimes almost black, full of blood, and so 

 tender that it would fall to pieces from its own weight. 



