DISEASES OF POULTRY. . 61 



grain or straw, or similar substances, and as these 

 spores must be inhaled with the breath or swallowed 

 with the food, it is generally easy to guard against 

 them. To accomplish this, avoid musty straw, or musty 

 or moldy food. If grain or straw is very dusty remove 

 this dust by appropriate means before it is put where 

 fowls have access to it. Keep the houses clean, dry, 

 and well ventilated in order to prevent the accumula- 

 tion of such spores. Destroy by fire or deeply bury 

 the carcasses of birds which die. 



Treatment. — This disease when once established 

 is usually fatal, notwithstanding medical treatment. 

 Fumigation with tar vapor has been recommended. 

 This is accomplished by shutting the fowls in a tight 

 room, placing a tablespoonful of wood tar on a pint of 

 water and stirring with a red-hot iron. The fowls are 

 forced to breathe this vapor, which should not be so 

 dense as to cause much irritation of the respiratory 

 apparatus. The experiments of Lucet indicate that 

 Fowler's solution of arsenic and particularly the tinct- 

 ure of iodine injected hypodermically have consider- 

 able influence in retarding the disease in rabbits. In 

 the canker of pigeons, if other treatment fails, tincture 

 of iodine may be applied to the affected part with a 

 small brush or swab. In other forms of the disease 

 in birds the internal administration of tincture of 

 iodine or iodide of potassium should be tried. No 

 form of treatment yet suggested, however, is very 

 promising and the effort should be to prevent rather 

 than to cure. 



-^^ THE AIR-SAC MITE. 



The peculiar arrangement of the respiratory organs 

 in birds has led to the development of a form of para- 



