Catarrhal Enteritis in Birds. 255 



Pathogenesis. Chickens inoculated hypodermically or in- 

 travenously die in I 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 I/ignieres 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 patho- 

 genic agent is a modified form or "sport" from the parent mi- 

 crobe, though no clearly defined peculiarities can be established 

 by cultures. 



The typical colon bacillus is 2 to 3 /i. long by 0.4 to 0.6 /* 

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

 or it may be 5 /i. long. It stains readily with aniline colors, 

 bleaches with iodine. It is aerobic, facultative auasrobic, non- 

 motile, non-liquifying, 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 i c.c. given subcutem. In rabbits and guinea- 

 pigs hypodermic injection caused abscess, while pleural and peri- 

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

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



Bacillus of Duck-Cholera found by Cornil and Toupet in 

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



