492 POULTRY DISEASES AND PARASITES 



birds, by mucilaginous drinks or strong coffee. A drink 

 suitable for this purpose may be made by boiling flax seed 

 or diluting the whites of eggs with water. 



Ptomain Poisoning. — This trouble is usually caused through 

 feeding spoiled or decayed feed. Not infrequently on the 

 general farm a rabbit or squirrel is wounded, but escapes 

 only to die later where the chickens can get at it. It fre- 

 quently becomes putrid before the birds have finished it, 

 and ptomain poisoning results. It also occurs in warm 

 weather through the feeding of milk where the containers 

 in which it is placed before the fowls are not properly and 

 frequently cleaned and scalded. Enough of the milk dries 

 on the sides of the pan to putrify and cause this difiiculty. 

 Its symptoms are usually the partial paralysis of muscles 

 in different parts of the body. 



The first evidence of the trouble is an unsteadiness of 

 gait followed by inability to walk, and sometimes later in the 

 form of the so-called "limberneck" with which the bird 

 loses control, more or less completely, of the head and neck. 



The treatment consists in removing the cause, giving 

 the entire flock a purgative dose of Epsom salts, and the 

 affected bird a teaspoonful of castor oil, followed by a half 

 grain of strychnine. 



Roup. — Roup is the most wide-spread of any disease attack- 

 ing adult chickens, and is probably second only to white 

 diarrhea in the seriousness of the resulting economic loss. 

 Technically, roup refers to one and possibly two specific 

 diseases, namely, catarrhal roup and diphtheritic roup. 

 Practically, it refers to that group of diseases effecting the 

 mouth, larynx, bronchial tubes, nasal cavities, and the 

 membranes surrounding the eye. These diseases may be 

 technically divided into common cold, bronchitis, influenza, 

 and canker, but practically such a differentiation is 

 unnecessary from the stand-point of flock treatment, and 

 indeed is impossible for the ordinary producer. 



Investigators are not agreed as to whether catarrhal roup 

 and diphtheritic roup are in reality separate and distinct 

 diseases, each caused by a specific organism, or whether they 

 are simply two stages of the same disease. Either one or 



