Catarrhal Enteritis in Birds. 259 



Pathogenesis. Chickens inoculated hypodermically or in- 

 travenously die in 1 to 5 or 6 days with peritonitis and intense 

 intestinal congestion. Fed in vegetable food it is harmless, but 

 with animal food virulent. Rabbits and pigeons are immune. 



Pond water is a common source of casual infection, also dung 

 heaps in which carcasses of little chicks have been buried. Sum- 

 mer is the period of greatest prevalence, as there is the best op- 

 portunity for the multiplication of the germ, and the drying of 

 the ponds concentrates the product. 



The bacillus is found on the intestinal mucous membrane, and 

 in the mucus and in advanced stages, in the blood, spleen, liver 

 and kidneys. 



Bacillus Coli Communis, the familiar bacillus of the healthy 

 bowel, is charged by Lignieres with causing a fowl enteritis and 

 probably does so as in mammals when the mucosa has become 

 diseased and non-resistant. At the same time there are so many 

 closely allied forms or varieties of this bacillus found in different 

 intestinal diseases, that it may well be that the pathogenic agent 

 is a modified form or ' 'sport' ' from the parent microbe, though 

 no clearly defined peculiarities can be established by cultures. 



The typical colon bacillus is 2 to 3/A long by 0.4 to 0.6/* broad, 

 with rounded ends, but it may be ovoid or even round, or it may 

 be 5/* long. It stains readily with aniline colors, bleaches with 

 iodine. It is aerobic, facultative anaerobic, non-motile, non-liqui- 

 fying, and asporogenous. It ferments all sugars producing gas, 

 acidifies its culture fluids, and coagulates milk. It grows freely 

 at room temperatures in peptonized gelatine, agar and bouillon 

 and on potato. Stab cultures in gelatine have a moss-like tufted 

 appearance. 



Pathogenesis. Injections subcutem, and into the veins and 

 ingestion with food all failed to infect the chicken, while the 

 pigeon died in 24 hours from intravenous injection and in 12 to 

 18 days from 1 c.c. given subcutem. In rabbits and guinea-pigs 

 hypodermic injection caused abscess, while pleural and peritoneal 

 injections killed in 24 to 48 hours. Rabbits are unaffected by 

 intravenous injection, while guinea-pigs die in 1 to 3 days. 



Bacillus of Duck-Cholera Jound by Cornil and Toupet in 

 the blood of ducks suffering from a diarrhoeal enteritis, is 1 to 

 1.5/t long, by 0.5/x broad, with rounded ends. It is aerobic, non- 



