February 1, 1909 
31 
PRIZE-TAKERS AT A RECENT SHOW. 
<2 Phe Poultry Yard: 2 * 
garden proclivities—I am inclined to agree 
with Mr. Afialo, the naturlist, who, in 
commenting on this transference of dis- 
- ease. hits very hard at ‘the harmless and 
Diseases of Fowls. 
G. BRAGSHAW, in the ‘Agricultural 
Gazette of N.S,W.’ 
—Diphtheria.— 
(Continued from last issue.) 
The following article on this disease 
was lately contributed by an English 
authority to a London poultry journal, 
and demonstrates the danger of an out- 
break of diphtheria, and was prompted by 
a discovery made by Dr. Robinson, the 
Medical Health Officer of Hast Kent. 
His attention was drawn to an outbreak of 
fever amongst the school children in 
- Elham, On investigating he found on 
the premises some fowls which had diph- 
heric throats, and that the germs were 
eG . 
conveyed to the children by means of the 
play-ground dust, and caused the fever, 
the origin of which had baffled the 
authorities. A cat which had slept in one 
of the hen’s nests also communicated the 
disease to a child:— 
I am not at all surprised to read of the 
communication of diphtheria from fowls to 
childrea, ‘I'he wonder is that it does not 
occur more frequently, and doubtless 
many cases that would be traceable are 
never suspected of having originated in 
the poultry. One of the means of con- 
veyance mentioned in the paragraph is 
open to question, viz. the playground 
dust—a necessarily dry product—and it. 
can be taken to heart by keepers of fowls. 
that ordinary dryness (as we commonly 
understand things being dry) is a destroyer 
of the germs of this disease. ‘Then the cat 
seems to have been the medium of con- 
veying the infection in one case, and 
though my experience of cats is rather 
limited—being obtained chiefly from their 
unnecessary house cat’ as a go-between for 
infectious diseases. 
We have to concern ourselves with the 
poultry aspect, and, unfortunately, it is 
too little recognised among the generality 
of poultry-keepers what danger there is 
surrounding an outbreak of virulent diph- 
theria among their birds. I always in- 
sisted that. directly an attack of. this 
occurs, the utmost caution is required, for 
one central instance has the gravest 
possibilities among all the birds of the 
neighourhood, and, as now shown, may be 
also a menace to human life. The safest 
and cheapest remedy is to isolate any 
mopy bird, and, at the least confirmation 
of suspicious throat, to kill, and burn the 
body right away. Burying in quicklime 
not less than 3 feet deep is good, but not 
so final as burning; then to set the house 
Sanitarily in good order. 
Commonly with cottage and farm poul- 
try—and itis here that most diphtherie 
cases occur—the procedure is to bring the 
moping, dejected patient into the kitchen, 
and putit in an epen basket on the fire- 
