R. 8. HUIDEKOFER. 
73 
EPITHELIOMA CONTAGIOSUM (Bol.) 
(SO-CALLED VARIOLA OF BIRDS ) 
The minute structure of fowl-pox, by Dr. Csokor, Vienna Oest., IV Jahr, Schrift 
fiir Wissen., Vet. Extracts by Dr. R. S. Huidekoper, V.M. 
From the earliest times we have had descriptions of the fowl- 
pox, a contagious disease affecting pigeons, chickens, turkeys, and 
even hawks. Hensinger, who first thoroughly described the 
disease, attributes the first mention of it to Arabian writers in the 
year 572. Crescenzio saw the pustules on the heads and around 
the eyes of pigeons, and noticed that it was especially epidemic 
in the summer months. Yarious writers, mostly from Italy, de¬ 
scribed this disease, and Bonfatti, Klein and others tried to iden¬ 
tify it with variola in man. 
Leblanc, Roell, and Bruckmueller regarded it as an ophthal¬ 
mia. Spinola and D’Arboval doubted the identity of it with 
variola, and obtained only negative results in reciprocal inocula¬ 
tions of the pustules from fowls, man, sheep, the cow, etc. Biv- 
olta, in 1873, advanced the opinion that the “fowl-pox ” was due 
to a parasite, causing a skin disease, which he called “ psorosper- 
mosi della cresta.” In the same year Dr. Bollinger identified the 
pustules with a skin neoplasm in man, the “ molluscum contag- 
iosum.” From Bollinger’s researches, it is not a “fowl-pox,” but 
an epithelioma contagiosum, which attacks chickens, pigeons and 
turkeys, in an epidemic form, during the hot months. As the 
cause of the molluscum, Bollinger gives a low organism of the 
group of sporophytes. The following lesions are given by the 
same author: The emaciated body shows pale muscles, and gen¬ 
eral anremia over the head, comb and gills, larynx, throat, palate 
and tongue, and sometimes in the nostril are found isolated, or 
confluent nodules, the size of a millet seed to that of a pea, gray¬ 
ish red, smooth or nodular, with starlike dirty gray scabs. In 
one case, over thirty of these nodules were seen. Microscopical 
examination showed the formation of epithelioma, with the dif¬ 
ference, that, in the protoplasm of the cells were peculiar shining 
round bodies (18 to 20 mm. diameter), which showed neither 
