CHAPTER XX 



Tumors 



New tissue growths or neoplasms (tumors) are by no 

 means uncommon in domestic fowls. It has been the routine 

 practice at the Maine Agricultural Experiment Station for 

 several years to autopsy all birds that are killed for material 

 or data and all birds that die from natural causes. The 

 archives of the laboratory now contain about nine hundred 

 autopsy records sufficiently complete to determine whether 

 or not the birds had tumors and in what organs the tumors 

 were located. These records show that 8.98 per cent of all 

 the birds autopsied had tumors. That is, there were about 

 90 cases of tumors per thousand birds. The genital organs, 

 at least in the females,^ were most often affected. In fact 

 37 per cent of all the tumors found were in the ovary and 

 19 per cent in the oviduct. Twenty-two per cent were found 

 in the peritoneum (some of these were attached to the walls 

 of the abdominal cavity and some were in the mesenteries). 

 Tumors have also been found in the intestine walls, kidney, 

 gizzard, liver, spleen, pancreas, heart and breast bone. 



Some of these tumors occurred in fowls killed for dissection 

 or data and in apparently normal health. The tumors were 

 the probable cause of death in less than half the cases of 

 birds with tumors which died from natural causes. 



The tumor was usually confined to one organ, but there 



1 Very few males were autopsied. One of the three tumors found 

 in males was located in one of the testes. 



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