605 



forms that attack the lining membrane of the intestine and thus 

 precipitating an outbreak of white diarrhea in the flock. There 

 are many poultry breeders who are prepared to vouch for the mar- 

 velous results that have followed the cleansing of eggs just prior 

 to incubation. However, the eggshell is not the only source of the 

 contagion of white diarrhea, so that merely dipping eggs and then 

 continuing to be careless on all the other points is not likely to be 

 a sufficient preventive. 



Clean Incubators and Brooders. The chief necessity for this 

 is because previous use has tended to infect them. For instance, 

 the infected eggs of a first hatch may not have been dipped, al- 

 though thrpugn some fortunate combination of unrecognized fac- 

 tors the chicks did not come down with the disease; nevertheless, 

 the organisms are there. Again, in view of the widespread infec- 

 tion of adult stock by coccidia and the writer's demonstration of the 

 causative relation of these coccidia to the almost universally preva- 

 lent white diarrhea of chicks, every poulterer should act on the as- 

 sumption that his adult stock is infected, that therefore the eggshells 

 have been contaminated, and hence that a previously used incu- 

 bator needs disinfection. 



Clean Breeding. Consideration of a few facts will demon- 

 strate the advisability of breeding with the youngest females con- 

 sistent with all known principles of good breeding. A few years 

 ago the announcement was made that so-called brooder pneumo- 

 nia is caused by the presence of a mold, Aspergillus fumigatus, 

 in the lungs of the chicks. Cases dead within 24 hours after hatch- 

 ing in which more than half the lung tissue has been trans- 

 formed into a solid, cheesy mass have been examined. Such a 

 condition could not have developed after hatching. The time 

 necessary for the development of such lesions would carry the 

 starting point back to the period of incubation hence the only pos- 

 sible method of accounting for such early disease would be to sup- 

 pose the presence of the mold within the egg and its development 

 in the egg along with the embryo, the conditions of incubation 

 being ideal for mold development. That eggs may carry mold in- 

 fection has long been known. Gayon, in 1875, reported finding 

 in eggs a mold which appears to have been Aspergillus fumigatus. 

 Since that time several investigators have noted the presence in 

 eggs of this pathogenic mold. More recent investigations have 

 revealed also the presence of various bacteria, both harmless and 

 disease-producing, in the egg contents. 



The question now arises as to how and where this infection of 

 the egg occurs. It is known that infection of the egg may take 

 place by passage of the microbes through the shell from the out- 

 side. Eggs kept in damp places are known to be thus infected with 

 molds, while eggs whose shells have been allowed to remain in a 

 filthy condition have revealed -a bacterial infection of their con- 

 tents in marked accord with the microbic contamination of the 

 outside of the shells. 



