Goose Septicemia. 655 



symptoms were made out. The affected geese moved tardily and 

 unsteadily, and failed to keep with the remainder of the flock. 

 Some burrowed the head in the dirt and twisted it around, indi- 

 cating, it was supposed, spasms of the throat. Some were seized 

 with the death agony in a few minutes ; in others the illness 

 lasted for hours, and from experimental cases it was concluded 

 that the period from infection to death, in the majority of cases, 

 did not exceed thirty-six hours. Some were believed to merge 

 into a chronic condition, but the owner thought that none recov- 

 ered. No diarrhcea is noted. 



Lesions. The head was the seat of marked venous and capil- 

 lary congestion, suggesting asphyxia. The bill and throat con- 

 tained a large quantity of tenacious mucus, which was especially 

 viscid in the nose. Extravasated blood in abundance was present 

 in the gastro-intestinal mucosa and contents, much of it more or 

 less digested. At some points there was abundant mucous exu- 

 date ; at others the folds were only marked by punctiform 

 petechiae, or by bloody patches formed by their coalescence. The 

 caeca were usually normal. 



The liver showed numerous punctiform extravasations and yel- 

 low patches of necrosis extending more or less deeply into the 

 hepatic tissue. Other congestions were seen in individual cases, 

 implicating, in one instance, the heart and pericardium, and in 

 another the lungs. Petechiae were frequent on the pericardium 

 and other mucosae. The blood was usually black, tarry, and 

 with little disposition to brighten on exposure to the air. 



Diagnosis. It is recognized as an infection of domestic water 

 fowl by its attacking the larger proportion of that class of animals 

 exposed to it. It is supposed that those which escape do so 

 because of immunity due to a previous attack, or by reason of the 

 absence of any wound of the mouth, throat or stomach by which 

 the germ might enter. It is distinguished from fowl {chicken') 

 cholera by the immunity of the chicken in this case. It is differ- 

 entiated from Klein's diarrheal enteritis of fowls, by the fact that 

 neither pigeon nor rabbit is immune. From the duck cholera of 

 Coruil and I^upet, it is diagnosed by the immunity of the chicken 

 only, while the rodents and pigeon suffer. 



The germ is manifestly one of the family of bacilli of the colon 

 group, found in the different septicaemias, but sufficiently distinc- 



