FOWL CHOLERA 
Historical.—The disease known as Fowl Cholera is endemic in some 
sections of the world. Referring to this disease, Hutyra and Marke (11) 
give the following historical resume: 
dangerous disease was described by veterinarians as early as the 
meniarn n'1 ° f the last some the authors 
(Benjamin, 1851, Delafond and Renault, 1851; and Hering, 1858) have recog¬ 
nized its contagious nature, and also substantiated it experimentally Per- 
“ aad also Semmer, described a diplococcus as the cause of the 
disease, which they constantly found in the blood of chickens dead of the 
disease. Toussant (1879), and later Pasteur (1880), confirmed their findings 
and succeeded in growing the bacteria in artificial bouillon, thus enabling 
them to study the pathogenic characteristics. Pasteur carried out his first 
fundamental experiments on the attenuation of bacterial cultures, and on 
immunization with such attenuated cultures with the bacilli of fowl cholera 
Valuable contributions regarding the etiology of the disease were also fur¬ 
nished by Kitt and Lignieres.” 
In America, the disease was first reported and studied by Salmon (28) 
in 1880. Salmon summarizes as follows: 
+hl 1 a-^ e examiae reports received each year at this Department from 
the different parts of the country we find that chicken cholera is mentioned 
as being destructive to the fowls in more than half the counties heard from 
The losses are estimated all the way from a few hundred dollars to as high 
as two hundred thousand dollars in single counties and if we consider that 
the remaining counties are affected to an equal extent, it is not difficult to 
realize the immense amount of capital that is annually swept out of existence 
y this plague. It may be that ten millions of dollars would cover the annual 
loss, but it is about as likely to reach fifteen or twenty millions.” 
In view of the fact that Salmon’s investigations were prior to the work of 
Klein in England (1888) and of Moore in America (1895) on fowl typhoid, 
it is possible that a good part of the disease designated as cholera in this 
survey was infection with E. sanguinaria (fowl typhoid). Cholera later 
was subjected to rigorous investigation by various American scientists, the 
work of Hadley being outstanding. 
Distribution.—The distribution of avian cholera and of avian typhoid 
is general throughout the world where poultry is raised. Undoubtedly in¬ 
tensive poultry raising and poor sanitary conditions are conducive to the 
inception and spread of these diseases. In Europe, both diseases are preva¬ 
lent at the present time. Dr. B. J. C. teHennepe of the State Serum Labora¬ 
tories, Rotterdam, sums up the situation on the Continent in a paper before 
the World’s Poultry Congress at The Hague in September, 1921, in the fol¬ 
lowing statement: 
“The number of cases or outbreaks observed by the State Serum Labora¬ 
tories at Rotterdam, from 1905 to 1920, were: cholera, 101; typhoid, 463. The 
above-mentioned figures prove clearly that in The Netherlands the Klein 
(typhoid) disease is of much greater importance than cholera. This opinion 
is shared as far as France is concerned by F. d’Herelle. Also, in that coun¬ 
try, cholera is less frequent than typhoid.” 
d’Herelle’s statement about these two diseases in France is as follows: 
. “ Avian typhosis is a disease affecting primarily the gallinaceae. Despite 
its frequency it foi a long time remained undetected, confounded with 
chicken cholera. This disease is, in reality, very rare.” 
