CHAPTER XX 



PREVENTION AND TREATMENT OF DISEASE AND VICE 



Hygiene and sanitation. Hygiene and sanitation are closely 

 related topics, practically inseparable in a treatise of this kind. 

 Hygiene relates more particularly to health and the preservation of 

 health in creatures ; sanitation relates more particularly to the main- 

 tenance of healthful conditions of environment. As the principal 

 phases of these topics in their relation to poultry have been dis- 

 cussed incidentally in preceding chapters, we need here introduce 

 only a brief discussion of the common ills and faults of poultry. 



The general observance of rules of hygiene and sanitation is of 

 vastly greater importance, both to the poultry keeper individually 

 and in its effect on general conditions in poultry culture, than spe- 

 cific knowledge of the causes, symptoms, and treatments of dis- 

 eases, for attention to hygienic and sanitary conditions is a general 

 preventive and salutary measure by which we not only ward off 

 disease but remedy most of the diseases which may be profitably 

 treated, and keep stock in the most profitable physical condition. 

 Correct hygiene and sanitation are a part of good practice in poultry 

 keeping. Special consideration and treatment of diseases become 

 necessary only when conditions are wrong or when practice is at 

 fault. Individual treatment is usually not profitable because of the 

 small value of the birds. In general, a knowledge of poultry diseases 

 is directly useful to poultrymen only for the determination and 

 correction of wrong conditions of hygiene and sanitation. 



Indications of disease or of a low physical condition are, to 

 those who can apprehend them, unmistakable signs of weakness 

 in the stock, or improper conditions or errors in handling. Gen- 

 eral symptoms show that there is something wrong. Just what is 

 wrong is not likely to be evident from symptoms except in cases 

 where a symptom is peculiar to a disease or to a small group of 

 similar disorders. When no special symptoms can be detected, the 

 disease can rarely be positively identified, and we have to turn 



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