POULTRY dise;ases and the;ir treatment. 187 



'White Diarrhea.'" (Joiirn. Med. Research). From a large 

 number of observations and experiments they came to the con- 

 clusion that white diarrhea was caused by a bacterium. A num- 

 ber of later papers by Dr. Rettger have appeared since then (e. 

 g., Journ. Med. Research, July, 1909; Am. Poult. World, Vol. t, 

 Nos. 3 and 5 ; also Rettger and Stoneburn, Storrs Agr. Expt. 

 Sta. Bui. 60) . In all of these the fact has been clearly brought 

 out that at least one form of white diarrhea is caused by a 

 bacterium. 



Dr. Rettger took chicks which had died with all the symp- 

 toms of white diarrhea and by the ordinary bacteriological 

 methods obtained pure cultures of a bacterium which had cer- 

 tain definite reactions and habits of growth. By these methods 

 this bacterium can be distinguished from other kinds. To this 

 species of bacteria he gives the name Bacterium pullorum. 

 Now if entirely healthy chicks were inoculated with the pure 

 culture of this bacterium they almost invariably showed symp- 

 toms of white diarrhea and in many cases died. To cite only 

 one case; at the Storrs Experiment Station (Bull. 60) 210 

 White Leghorn chicks were hatched from healthy stock. These 

 were divided into several lots, some of which were infected by 

 feeding bouillon cultures of Bacterium pullorum. Other lots 

 were used as controls. The results were as follows : "During 

 the first two weeks the comparative mortality was as follows : 



Control lots (84 chicks) 5 deaths or 6 per cent. 



Infected lots (126 chicks) 22 deaths or 18 per cent. 

 At this time the chicks in the control lots averaged 15 per cent 

 more in weight than those in the infected lots and appear in 

 every way greatly superior to them." 



In many cases Dr. Rettger was able to find Bacterium pul- 

 lorum pure in the artificially infected birds. Further he was 

 able to obtain the same bacterium from a large number of dif- 

 ferent chicks gathered from widely different localities. Dr. 

 Rettger says (Am. Poult. World, January, 1910) : "From the 

 blood of the liver, heart and lungs I have repeatedly found the 

 organism — Bacterium pullorum. More recently I have been 

 able to obtain the organism without difficulty, from the unab- 

 sorbed yolk and in some instances from the crop of the affected 

 chicks. In some chicks that were quite young at the time of 

 death (2 or 3 days) the same bacterium may be found in the 



