1919.J PUBLIC DOCUMENT — No. 31. 53 « 



composition, some of the material received has been in such 

 condition that an examination could give no satisfactory data 

 for a report or advice to the stock owner. In every instance, 

 however, after the specimen has been received and examined, 

 a detailed report in the form of a personal communication 

 has been forwarded to the party from whom the specimen 

 has come. 



The examination of specimens from the stock owners has 

 been of value not alone to those from whom the materials 

 have come, but also to the students taking courses in the 

 department, for they are thus enabled to study specimens of 

 diseased tissue which it might be difficult to obtain in such 

 abundance and variety by any other means. 



For several years prior to February, 1918, the department 

 staff has been engaged in three different lines of work, two 

 of which were strictly experimental in their nature, and the 

 third, a control measure for the suppression and elimination 

 of a disease of poultry. With the development of war con- 

 ditions in 1917 and 1918 it became necessary to suspend the 

 control work and one line of experimental study. The emer- 

 gency conditions due to the war have also seriously interfered 

 with the prosecution of the second line of investigational work. 



Blood Test of Fow^ls. 

 From February, 1915, to February, 1918, there has been 

 carried on by the department a line of control work for the 

 suppression and elimination of bacillary white diarrhea in 

 fowls. Blood samples have been collected from flocks of 

 fowls in nearly one hundred towns of the State. These have 

 been brought to the veterinary laboratory and used for making 

 the agglutination test for the diagnosis of bacillary white 

 diarrhea. Upon the completion of the test a report has been 

 sent to the owner of the birds from which the blood samples 

 were taken, and detailed information given for the subsequent 

 treatment of the flock in order to eliminate the diseased birds 

 and to protect the healthy individuals from infection. During 

 the three years that the work has been in progress there have 

 been about 35,000 birds tested, with the most satisfactory 

 results from the disease suppression point of view. 



