POULTRY DISEASES AND THlJIR TREIATM^NT. 17 



water. At the same time one should clean and disinfect the 

 drinking pails and fountains regularly, just as he would if he 

 were not using potassium permanganate. At the Station plant 

 for some 2 years past no bird has ever had a drink of water from 

 the time it was hatched which did not contain potassium per- 

 manganate, except such water as it got from mud puddles and 

 the like. 



Dr. G. B. Morse, the well knowli authority on poultry dis- 

 eases of the Department of Agriculture, had the following to 

 say regarding this point in a recent address (Rel. Poult. Jour. 

 Oct. 1910). After, describing the potassium permanganate 

 method, as well as two others, directed to the same end, but 

 in the opinion of the present writers not so desirable as this, 

 he goes on to say: "Water-borne diseases are frequent in the 

 poultry yard. Clean and disinfect your drinking-fountains (and 

 you must) ever so well, if you are permitting, consciously or 

 unwittingly, to run at large one bird sick with any of the con- 

 tagious diseases of the head parts or with bowel diseases, you 

 may count on that water supply being contaminated in less 

 than one hour's time. In the case of a large flock affected 

 with flagellate diarrhoea I have myself founcbthe flagellates in 

 less than one hour's time in the drinking water which had been 

 sterilized and placed in thoroughly disinfected fountains. Do 

 you not see where such a condition as this forces you ? Right up 

 against the principle of the individual drinking cup. Ridicu- 

 lous, do you say? Not a bit. I did not say 'the individual 

 drinking cup,' but the 'principle of the individual drinking cup.' 

 Boards of health are recognizing that by means of the common, 

 public drinking-cup foul and terrible diseases are being spread 

 among people. It is just so with your poultry, and while you 

 cannot adopt the individual cup you can incorporate the prin- 

 ciple of it in your hygienic methods by adding ***** 

 one of the antiseptics named. It is true, in the proportions 

 named, these remedies do not disinfect the water, only act as 

 antiseptics, that is, act to hinder the developement of bacteria 

 and other microbes. The water itself should be changed fre- 

 quently. This hindering of microbian growth occurs not only 

 in the fountain but is kept up in the intestinal tract." 



