630 
EPIDEMIC AMONG POULTRY. 
hour and a half. She no longer is occupied about herself, 
but is careless about her eggs, if sitting, and negligent of her 
chicks. To these we may add another pathognomonic sign, 
which is the sudden discoloration of her crest, growing, 
with the exception of the superior papillae, completely pale. 
And during this period of paleness of crest, the hen appears 
restless, strikes her head sharply, as though something 
annoyed her; and scrapes her beak against the ground to 
get rid of some thick mucous matter sticking to it. At 
times, this mucus is so viscid, that the hen, making violent 
retching efforts, in part opens her beak, letting us see the 
interior, which is filled with mucosities, showing together 
the two divisions of the beak. Her alvine dejections now 
turn of a yellow colour, a citron yellow, having an infectious 
odour ; the crest from being pallid, turns of the blue of wine- 
lees, it is cyanosee . This symptom is the avant-courier of 
death. The hen is seized with convulsive flapping of her 
wings, her body all over experiences a sort of nervous 
trembling; the head falls listlessly, the beak drops upon the 
ground ; the power of motion is lost ; ultimately, the hen 
sinks and expires. 
Another constant symptom, and a palpable one, is the 
elevation of the temperature of the body, which rises from 
the invasion of the malady, and continues until death. And 
so remarkable is this increased heat, that it is found to con- 
tinue for even upwards of four hours after death. If, at this 
moment, we examine the skin underneath the belly and 
upon the ribs, we perceive it to be rose-coloured and every- 
where normal ; but that, at a later period, it is covered with 
black patches, or bluish ones, of variable dimensions, the 
skin then being cyanosee , as with persons dying of cholera. 
With all the hens that die in this way, there is as much diffi- 
culty in plucking out the feathers as with healthy ones. 
The duration of the malady does not exceed three or four 
days. 
Cadaveric lesions . — In all the hens I have examined there 
has existed uniformity in the appearance. The flesh has to 
remain unaltered. But within the beak, upon the palate, 
in the nasal fossae and upon the tongue, were found numer- 
ous patches, some isolated, some agglomerated ; and near the 
commissure of the beaks, I have seen twice or thrice, little 
red pimples surmounted with a whitish prominent head. 
The pharynx and beginning of the oesophagus are some- 
what injected, without any thickening of their membranes. 
The supplementary stomach, which in a fowl in health is of 
smaller dimensions, is enlarged in one subjected to or that 
