DISEASES AND ENEMIES. 151 



withdraw. Very likely some of the parasites and mucus will 

 come with it. The rest will be loosened or killed, and event- 

 ually thrown out. It may be necessary to repeat the operation. 



To kill the worm in its lodgment, gum camphor in the 

 drinking water or pellets of it as large as a pea forced down the 

 throat is recommended. Turpentine in the soft feed, as advised 

 in the treatment for worms in the intestines, is said to be effect- 

 ive. Pinching the windpipe with the thumb and finger will 

 sometimes loosen the parasite. 



When broods are quartered on soil known to be infested, 

 air-slaked lime should be dusted on the floor of the coop, and 

 every other night, for two or three weeks, a little of the same 

 should be dusted in the coop over the hen and her brood. To 

 apply, use a dusting bellows and only a little each time. 



CHOLERA is due to a specific germ, or virus, and must not 

 be confounded with common diarrhoea. In genuine cholera 

 digestion is arrested, the crop remains full, there is fever and 

 great thirst. The bird drinks, but refuses food and appears to 

 be in distress. There is a thickening of the blood, which is 

 made evident in the purple color of the comb. The discharges 

 from the kidneys, called the urates, which in health are white, 

 become yellowish, deep yellow, or, in the final stages, a greenish- 

 yellow. The diarrhoea grows more severe as the disease pro- 

 gresses. A fowl generally succumbs in two days. The virus of 

 cholera is not diffusible in the air, but remains in the soil, 

 which becomes infected from the discharges, and in the body and 

 blood of the victims. It may be carried from place to place on 

 the feet of other fowls or animals. Soil may be disinfected by 

 saturating it with a weak solution of sulphuric acid in water. 

 Remove at once all well birds to new and clean quarters and 

 wring the necks of all sick birds and burn their carcasses and 

 disinfect their quarters. 



For cases not too far gone to cure give sugar of lead, 

 pulverized opium, gum camphor, of each, 60 grains, powdered 

 capsicum (or fluid extract of capsicum is better, 10 drops), 

 grains, 10. Dissolve the camphor in just enough alcohol that 

 will do so without making it a fluid, then rub up the other ingre- 

 dients in the same bolus, mix with soft corn meal dough, 

 enough to make it into a mass, then roll it and divide the whole 

 into one hundred and twenty pills. Dose, one to three pills a 



