28 



MASS. EXPERIMENT STATION BULLETIN 308 



diagnosis oi either neuioK inplidiiiatosis or 1> niphocNtoniatosis. This investiga- 

 tion indicates that blood counting would not be effective in detecting birds in the 

 early stages of neurolymphomatosis, as suggested by Johnson (1933) and Seagar 

 (1933), because fluctuation in normal birds may temporarily surpass the leukocy- 

 tosis and hmphocytosis occurring in paralyzed birds. Furthermore, there is 

 usualK a period between leukocytosis and hmphocytosis of birds affected with 

 neurolymphomatosis in which there is a tendency for the progress of the disease 

 to be arrested, and the blood picture is often normal during this period. All of 

 these conditions are met in flocks coming down with neurohmphomatosis so that 

 blood counts are unreliable and should not be accepted as a diagnosis, unless 

 accompanied by gross or histological lesions. 



During the course of this study the question arose, is there an\' wa\' of checking 

 the results? A search of the literature did not reveal any way of checking any- 

 thing except the hematolog>- of healthy birds, and that was not very satisfactory 

 because so man\ difterent methods were used that the results are not comparable 

 throughout. Table 9 contains the results of some of the more recent investiga- 

 tions on the hematolog}' of healthx- birds. 



Table 9. Thk ffEMATOLOGY of Healthy Birds as Determined by 

 Different Investigators 



Blain, 1928 



Breusch. 102S 



Burnett, I0I7 



Cook and Dcarst\ ne, 



1934 



Fernstermacher, 19i:52. 



Forkner, 1929 



Klleneherger and Carl, 



1912 



Present Investigator 



193-1 



3,468.000 

 3,300,000 



2,841,00r 

 2.594, I8i- 

 3,267,000 



3,117,00( 



3,160.S,oO 



18,630 

 53.300 

 17,921 



16,35r 

 24,425 

 24.5SC 



35.000 



24,02.- 



76.0'^'; 



10.8 mg 

 76 . 0% 

 62.9% 



'52.0% 



^5 . 3% 



Eosinophilic 

 Leukocvtes 



19.4 8. 



17.7 4. 



3 . 3 



3.1 



i4.7 1. 



29 . 5 4 . 



10.4 23. 



28. S 

 45.4 



L.vmphocyte: 



41 . 

 63. 



5.7 

 9.2 

 5.5 



14.5 



17.1 

 



A stud\ of Table 9 shows that the same method was used for counting the red 

 and white blood cells by all investigators and the results are comparable. .Since 

 hematology has suffered from a lack of a single, simple, accurate method for 

 determining hemoglobin, Pepper and Farley (1933), the results of the various 

 methods in use cannot ver>' well be e.xpected to agree. The present writer used 

 Wong's method and there is no comparative work with birds available. Burnett, 

 Fernstermacher, I'orkner, and Klieneberger and Carl used the Newcomer Hemo- 

 globinometer adjusted to read in percentage, and their results are fairK' uniform. 

 Cook and Dearst\ne determined the hemoglobin colorimetricalK' with the 

 Newcomer Hemoglobinometer in grams per 100 cc. of blood and there is no 

 other work axailable for comparison. 



