PROFITABLE LINES OF INVESTIGATION IN POULTRY 



DISEASES 



BY GEORGE BYRON MORSE 



In the last analysis all truly scientific investigation looks toward the 

 practical. The pure bred scientist is by nature a utilitarian. One would 

 not be, therefore, far astray in answering the implied question of this 

 paper's title by saying that all lines of investigation in poultry diseases 

 are profitable. Surveying the field of poultry diseases for the first time 

 one is astounded that so little really final work has been accomplished. 

 We have positive knowledge as to the causative relation of a few infectious 

 agents to certain epizootic diseases. But when it comes to the question of 

 the normal habitat of these supposedly well identified microbes, of how best 

 to attack them before they attack the flock, of the surest weapons with 

 which to repel an attack, of what kind of a certificate of health can be 

 awarded a so-called cured bird, I do not fear contradiction when I assert 

 that we are largely in the dark. 



Suppose we take the embryo. Why do chicks die in the shell? Your 

 weak-germs and lack-of -moisture theories have been worked a long while 

 but they do not fit all cases. Why do hens surpass incubators in securing a 

 manifestation of fertility in the eggs? Are there microbes or enzymes at 

 work within the egg that throttle the embryo on the very threshold of life? 

 And if they do not die in the shell what is that spirit of spite that makes 

 them "cripples" at the time of hatching ? 



Suppose we take the chick. On the headstone over an infant's grave in 

 an English churchyard are the words: 



If I was so soon to be done for, 

 What in the world was I begun for? 



Many a poultryman has probably said, as he viewed the sickening mass 

 of feathered remains of what had appeared to be a good hatch, "Them's 

 my sentiments." The cause of white diarrhea in chicks has been recognized 

 and announced by the writer, but the problems connected with this fatal 

 plague of coccidiosis are many and difficult of solution. The same may be 

 said of all the diseases that sweep epizootically through a flock. 



Intestinal troubles in chicks offer a most interesting subject of investiga- 

 tion. Probably no subject presents better inducements for careful and 

 extensive research than that of the diarrheas of chicks and chickens. 

 Relaxation diarrhea must be taken into account. Physical agencies, such as 



