Oct. ii, 1913. 
FOREST AND STREAM 
465 
The Duck Malady 
A NENT the duck malady in and around 
Salt Lake Valley, it is now about four 
years since this unfortunate illness ap¬ 
peared among our water fowl, and since its 
inception, we have had and made some interest¬ 
ing observations and experiments which have 
some apparent foundation and merit; in fact, 
enough to justify at this time a resume of the 
work done. When this malady made its ap¬ 
pearance among our ducks and geese in Salt 
Lake Valley our birds died by the thousands, 
literally strewing the sloughs and preserves with 
carcasses. Quite naturally our first impulse was 
to remove the dead ones and fumigate as best 
we could. All sorts of theories, opinions and 
causes were assigned and the probability of its 
being cholera similar to chicken cholera found 
much favor with many of us, and not being 
familiar with the diseases of the feathered tribe 
we simply had to grope in the darkness. Among 
expedients adopted was the sending of carcasses 
to the Bureau of Animal Industry, Washington, 
D. C., for bacteriological examination, and 
while waiting for their analysis, the work of 
fumigating and clearing up the grounds was 
done. Among other things we did was to take 
about two hundred “sick birds” (ducks and 
geese) and place them in a large enclosure with 
a supply of good, fresh water from an artesian 
well, clean and new food and the result was 
that 98 per cent, of these birds recovered in 
due time and flew away. The Bear River Duck 
Club treated a large number in a similar manner 
with equally good results as did the State Fish 
and Game Department. 
I had the pleasure last month of viewing 
one of these flocks at the country home of one 
of the gentlemen and I never saw cleaner or 
nicer birds than were on these ponds. About 
this time the pathologists at Washington ren¬ 
dered their report and stated that the disease 
was “Coccidiosis” (a disease of fowl very com¬ 
mon in Rhode Island and vicinity among quail, 
turkey, etc., very persistent and thus far seem¬ 
ingly impossible to eradicate or cure). We were 
then up against a stone wall seemingly, a diag¬ 
nosis of “coccidiosis” and no known remedy— 
truly the outlook of the Salt Lake duck hunter 
was gloomy indeed; but with the indomitable 
spirit of a Yankee, we persevered. We dried 
our grounds, burned the tides and grass, 
sprinkled lime, buried and burned the carcasses 
by the wagon and boat load, and each year the 
dreaded sickness returned about the middle of 
July. Each year it abated about the middle of 
September—i. e.. to a very great extent—and 
by the middle of the duck season it had pretty 
well cleared up. Occasional sick birds were 
seen and found, but the big end of the sick ones 
slowly disappeared, and by Jan. 1 it was prac¬ 
tically unknown. About this time we sent more 
birds to Washington, and it was reported to 
us that one California Club had a similar ex¬ 
perience. We were then informed that the 
diagnosis of “coccidiosis” was wrong; that in 
none of the subsequent examinations were they 
able to find that micro organism; that its pres¬ 
ence in the first bird examined was merely co- 
By M. K. STEWART, M.D. 
incidental. They further stated that they were 
unable to isolate or find any micro organism, 
which was constantly present in all the birds, 
but that in each case they did find a severe irri¬ 
tation of the intestines of all birds, and similar 
diseased condition in all of the birds examined. 
They then experimented with cultures made 
from the diseased birds, in an effort to estab¬ 
lish or disprove the “contagious phase” of 
the disease. They then injected some of these 
cultures into the abdominal cavity of some 
healthy ducks, under the skin of others and 
finally “fed” it as part of the food to others, 
but in every instance the cultures produced no 
effect whatever on the healthy birds so used. 
These experiments thus eliminated absolutely 
the contagious feature, showing that it was not 
communicable, nor of the character of a trans¬ 
missible disease; but they thought t'.-.at the irri¬ 
tation within the intestines was produced by 
sulphuric acid thrown into the streams by the 
sugar and canning factories. (We have since 
learned that rather a large quantity of sulphur 
is thrown out in the waste from these factories— 
used in the process of sugar manufacture.) 
At this time some of the California people 
experimented along this line of thought by 
feeding some of their ducks with a food con¬ 
taining small quantities of sulphuric acid with 
the result that they produced the same disease, 
and upon withdrawing the sulphuric acid, the 
birds immediately recovered. We then began 
to look around our vicinity for possible sources 
of contamination, and as we pursued our in¬ 
vestigations we learned that the cattle at one 
of the Ogden factories were ill. The keeper 
there upon learning of the sickness of the ducks 
conducted some post-mo: tern examinations on 
his own hook and found the diseased condition 
in their intestines to be similar to that found 
in the ducks. He then fenced the cattle off 
from feeding on the marsh and drinking the 
water thrown out by the sugar factory, and the 
cattle got well. In due time thereafter high 
water raised upon the waste water and marsh, 
again giving the cattle access to it, and they 
again developed the disease, whereupon he re¬ 
moved his fence again, so as to exclude the 
cattle from the pond. The cattle all recovered 
promptly, whereas prior to this time—i. e., since 
the cattle were allowed access to that food 
—they lost 2 per cent, of stock each year. 
This affliction among the cattle, however, we 
consider as coincidental, and merely because it 
so happened that the same element, sulphur or 
sulphuric acid, entered into their food. The 
ducks and geese, however, that feed at the 
mouth of this river along which the factory was 
located, died by the thousands. Now whether 
or not all the contamination troubling the birds 
at this location came from this factory I am not 
prepared to say. At any rate, the similarity of 
the disease among the cattle and the ducks 
there, with ours in and around Salt Lake City, is 
so plain that further discussion becomes un¬ 
necessary. 
After the sulphuric acid theory was an¬ 
nunciated, we set about to make a few analyses 
of our own. We gathered the paunches of 
cattle dying in and around Salt Lake, and had 
the chemists at the State University make ex¬ 
aminations and in each instance found traces of 
sulphuric acid in the stomach contents. They 
then made an analysis of the water in the 
streams going into the duck grounds and also 
found traces of sulphuric acid. We then set 
out to learn where all his sulphur was coming 
from, and in conversation one day with an en¬ 
gineer of one of the large smelters, he told me 
of their investigations in reference to the ill¬ 
ness among the cattle and stock in the valley, 
and also as to the quantity of sulphur emitted 
from the smelter stacks in twenty-four hours, 
and the amazing amount of three hundred tons 
of sulphur is thrown out daily from one smelter 
alone. I then learned the “form” of sulphur 
emitted and proceeded to work out the chemical 
equation, and it was then very plain as to the 
source of the chemical irritant that made our 
ducks sick. The sulphur leaves the smelter 
stack as sulphur dioxide, immediately combining 
with one atom of oxygen, becoming sulphur tri¬ 
oxide. Sulphur having great affinity for water 
or moisture, combines with the first it meets, 
and is immeditely converted into sulphuric acid. 
Viz:—S 0 2 + 0 =S 0 3 +H= 0 =H 2 SO4, or sul¬ 
phuric acid. Here then was a very plain solu¬ 
tion of our difficulty; every critter, horse, cow, 
calf or chicken in this valley feeding upon foods 
or grass exposed to these smelter fumes soon 
developed a dysentery. Why, to even chase a 
cow or horse across a ten-acre field after eating 
this sulphur tainted food, and his bowels moved 
so fast that you would imagine that they had 
taken a whole keg of castor oil. These same 
critters that feed constantly upon this tainted 
grass and hay soon grow thin and emaciated, a 
constant looseness of the bowels, and finally die. 
Even poultry allowed to feed in the barnyard 
and fields exposed to these fumes soon dies as 
a result of the sulphur or sulphuric acid taken 
with the food. Even last winter a lady nearby 
informed 11s that if she turned her chickens out 
in the barnyard or field, she would lose them, 
but so long as she kept them under a good roof, 
she was not troubled by so great a mortality 
among her flock, but that it was surely fatal to 
her brood if they were allowed to roam at will 
over the farm. Now, here is a clinical history 
and picture that the layman can understand as 
well as a physician. Our ducks have such a 
profuse dysentery that in one week’s time they 
are like a razorback hog, the cattle showing the 
same symptoms, the poultry as well, and when 
we remove the ducks and geese from the infected 
waters they all get well. What can be more 
plain ? 
About this time the U. S. Weather Bureau 
became interested in the subject, and after due 
investigation published a series of articles en¬ 
titled, “Following the Snake Trails in Salt Lake,” 
and confirmed the above theory to the fullest 
extent. The reader is respectfully referred to 
the articles above mentioned by J. Cecil Alter, 
U. S. Weather Bureau, Salt Lake City, Utah, in 
the January and February issues of “Mines and 
