76 BRITISH BIRDS. 



1 



Rooks, Crows, rats, and ferrets fed largely on the diseased 

 Pigeons without apparently contracting the disease ; 

 also that numbers were eaten by labourers, etc., without 

 any ill effect accruing ; but, of course, in the latter case 

 the Pigeons were cooked, and this would kill the micro- 

 organisms. 



The question has often been asked w^hether this Pigeon 

 disease is the same as diphtheria in the human subject. 

 This is an intricate bacteriological subject, and a discussion 

 on the 'pros and cons would be quite out of place here ; 

 suffice it to say that the causative bacilli of the two diseases 

 are different in character, and as yet there is no proof 

 that the characteristics of Bacillus diphtherice columharum 

 change to the characteristics of Bacillus Klebs-Loffler 

 (human diphtheria bacillus) on transplantation from the 

 Pigeon to the human throat. 



Dr. Sambon, in an interesting paper in the " Lancet " 

 (April 18th, 1908, p. 1143) on the "Epidemiology of 

 Diphtheria," in order to account for the increased amount 

 of diphtheria on the eastern seaboard (where, as he says. 

 Pigeons mass together in the autumn and winter) favours 

 the suggestion of the transmissibility of Pigeon diphtheria 

 to the human subject. Unfortunately, he takes only the 

 deaths from the disease, and not the incidence of the 

 disease, which will be found to be quite a different thing. 

 Whatever it may have been in the years in which his 

 statistics were made up (1855-80), this year, at any rate, 

 as I have shown, there was practically no Pigeon disease 

 in those counties, the disease being practically confined 

 to inland counties bordering the Thames — the very 

 counties which he shows to have the lowest diphtheria 

 death-rate. The returns for the last nine months from 

 these counties are not yet made up, so there are not 

 yet any statistics to show whether there has been any 

 corresponding rise in the incidence of human diphtheria. 



VII. — Post-mortem Appearances. — The most in- 

 variable appearance after death is the presence of a 

 cheesy yellow " false membrane " over the hard palate, 



