CHAPTER XXVI. 



THE DISEASES OF PIGEONS. 



IN consequence of the artificial conditions under which domesticated pigeons are 

 reared and nurtured, they are liable to a variety of diseases which appear to 

 be unknown to the birds in their natural state. 



Several of these are described, the older Treatises and the most empirical 

 modes of treatment recommended for their care. 



Dr. Chapuis, in his valuable work " Le Pigeon Voyageur Beige," has given 

 far more rational descriptions of the diseases of these birds than had been pre- 

 viously published. His remarks, however, apply chiefly to the homing birds that 

 are reared in such immense numbers in Belgium, and consequently he omits 

 noting some of the diseases affecting the more artificial varieties cultivated in this 

 country. 



The causes of nearly all the diseases affecting pigeons are the unnatural 

 conditions under which they are maintained. If the birds are kept in localities 

 where they can be permitted to fly at large, housed in well- sheltered lofts that are 

 frequently cleaned, and are supplied with a sufficient amount of wholesome food, 

 and a constant supply of clean water, disease will be almost, if not entirely, 

 unknown amongst them. But if overcrowded and confined in dirty lofts, the 

 atmosphere of which is charged with the exhalations from the dung of the 

 birds, more especially if fed from the floor, where the food becomes contaminated 

 with the dung, and supplied with water that is fouled by the same cause, the 

 birds become unhealthy and subject to scrofulous and other diseases that are 

 unknown when they are maintained in more natural and healthy conditions. 



The most frequent of these diseases are known to English fanciers under the 

 names of roup, canker, wing disease, staggers, purging, and fallen gizzard. 



It will, however, be more advantageous to consider these diseases in a some- 

 what more methodical manner, as several are really but different manifestations 

 of the same disease. 



Scrofula in pigeons, as in the human subject, makes itself manifest in several 

 apparently distinct diseases. It is produced in birds by similar causes to those that 

 develop it in man, namely, bad food, foul water, overcrowded unhealthy dwelling- 

 places, and deficiency of fresh air and exercise. 



Wing disease is one of the most common forms in which scrofula occurs ; it 

 consists essentially in a deposit of cheesy scrofulous matter in and around the 

 joints, the elbow joint (C. Figures I. II. and IV., pages 4 and 7) being the one 



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