602 HORSE, SWINE AND POULTRY DISEASES 



or develop conditions in which certain well-known disease-pro- 

 ducing parasites may operate, or may, during their so-called harm- 

 less development, evolve poisons which, given certain accidents to 

 the lining membrane of the intestinal tract, may suddenly pro- 

 voke a fatal disease in the bird. Hence it is necessary not only to 

 clean out the intestinal tract by means of Epsom salt but to keep 

 it in this condition. 



What has just been said is not merely with reference to the 

 prevention of disease. Suppose disease of any form has attacked 

 the bird. It now requires the maximum of its disease-resisting 

 powers for a successful defense. But suppose the bird is already 

 engaged in battling with intestinal parasites and neutralizing their 

 toxins. It is as if a nation engaged in civil war is suddenly called 

 upon to defend itself against a foreign invasion. So, when the 

 flock is attacked by disease or a single bird becomes ill, even though 

 the affection be only bumblefoot, the poultry man should clean 

 out with Epsom salt. By this means he will not only stimulate the 

 disease-resisting forces of his birds, but will also relatively increase 

 those powers by the removal from the intestinal tract of parasites and 

 poisons which would otherwise have to be overcome. 



Clean Up by Spreading Powdered Air-Slaked Lime. This is 

 important chiefly because of its association with No. 4 (clean food). 

 More cases of disease are probably developed through parasite-con- 

 taminated food and drink than any other means. The causative 

 organisms of disease in the respiratory and digestive tracts are 

 passed out of the body of the bird in immense numbers in the 

 droppings. Thus disease is spread from bird to bird by means of 

 the infective droppings of a sick fowl or chick ; or it may reach 

 the flock from a neighbor's sick poultry by the wind wafting the 

 dust from his poultry yard contaminated with the infection-laden 

 droppings of his diseased stock, or 'being tracked from his place 

 by dogs or cats or even by mutual friends, or it may be carried 

 from place to place by such birds as sparrows and crows. It must 

 be remembered, too, that it is not alone the sick birds that are thus 

 a source of danger. In poultry hygiene as in human sanitation 

 one must beware of the "carrier" of causative agents of disease, 

 not only bacillus carrier but microbe carrier, using this latter term 

 to include the molds and microscopic animal forms, such as coc- 

 cidia, the cause of white diarrhea in chicks, and also parasite 

 carrier, under which term are included the larger parasites, such as 

 worms. These carriers are divided into three classes sick carriers, 

 chronic carriers, and healthy carriers. Against the sick carriers 

 the poultryman is naturally forewarned and forearmed. But as the 

 soldier dreads the ambushed foe, so let the poultryman be wary of 

 the covert attack on his flock by parasitic enemies which stealth- 

 ily approach the bird under cover of the once sick but now sup- 

 posed to ( be cured bird (chronic carrier), and hidden in the intes- 

 tinal tract of healthy birds (healthy carriers) that have simply 

 picked up the parasites and are carrying them without being af- 

 fected by them. Against all such risks the poultryman materially 



