CHICKEN CHOLERA 
389 
for a longer period prior to death are much emaciated, at times 
cyanotic, the feathers around the anus are soiled with their feces 
of a semi-solid consistency, the tissues have a yellow tinge. The 
stomachs contain normal quantities of food masses or are empty. 
The intestinal tract soft, gray, yellow or brownish yellow masses, 
consisting of mucus, round granulated cells, epithelial cells, food 
debris, large quantities of micrococci two-linked chains and rods. 
Mucous membrane of the intestines tender, swollen and ecchy- 
motic. 
The villi are deprived of their epithelium and infiltrated with 
granular masses and colorless blood corpuscles, in part highly in¬ 
jected, its vessels dilated and filled with colored and colorless 
corpuscles. The liver in the first stage is dark brown, vascular, 
hepatic cells infiltrated ; if the disease has progressed for a longer 
time, it is yellowish, due to fatty metamorphosis, lungs hyper- 
aemic, foam in the bronchial tubes. Blood discolored, brownish 
red, thick, contains the like micrococci as in the intestinal tract. 
Course and Termination. —The course of the disease is at 
first, at its first appearance, a very rapid one; the affected ani¬ 
mals die 'either within a very short time or at most 10 or 12 
hours. The stage of incubation after feeding upon the intestines 
of such as have died of the disease is a very short one. To¬ 
ward the end of an epizootic the disease takes on a subacute char¬ 
acter, the disease lasts for several days. The animals sicken not 
for several days after feeding (up to 14 days) and die frequently 
only after two or three weeks after taking up the contagion. 
The diagnosis is easily made according to the symptoms al¬ 
ready mentioned, the findings on post mortem examinations and 
the epizootic form of its appearance. It is not likely to 
be mistaken for croup (pips) on account of the absence of false 
membranes in the throat, nor with anthrax on account of the ab¬ 
sence of cyanosis of the comb, ecchymosis and blackish brown 
spots in the muscles, as well as on account of the absence of 
anthrax bacilli. 
The prognosis of chicken colera is always bad, as nearly all 
chickens affected die; toward the end of the plague, however, in¬ 
stances of recovery from slight attacks occur more frequently. 
