Causes: microbes, diagnosis from fowl cholera, less virulent rapid and
deadly, and comparatively harmless to the rabbit, debility, youth,
age, unsuitable food, ill health: bacillus gallinorum, bacillus coli
communis, bacillus of duck cholera, spirillum Metchnikowi. Symptoms:
dullness, fever, langor, inappetence, thirst, pale comb, greenish
fæces, erect plumage, drooping wings and tail, sunken head, gaping,
staggering, somnolence, bloody fæces, violet comb, low temperature,
death in one to three weeks. Diagnosis: by restriction to one flock,
or species, and immunity of rabbits. Mortality 80%. Prevention:
separation of sick and healthy, disinfection of roosts and yards, pure
food and water boiled or acidified, immunization. Treatment: boiled
food with antiseptics, antiseptic enemata, stimulants, tonics.
_Causes._ A number of different microbes are implicated in producing and
maintaining catarrhal enteritis in the domestic poultry. All forms of
the disease are therefore closely related to the well known fowl
cholera, which is however to be differentiated, by its more intense
virulence, rapid progress, and its deadly effect when inoculated on the
rabbit. As in other forms of microbian enteritis, that of fowls is
undoubtedly favored by general and local debility, youth, old age,
unsuitable food and other health depressing causes, yet as the specific
pathogenic microbe has been in many cases identified, it is well to
consider some of the different species.
=Bacillus gallinorum= found by Klein (1889) in the blood of chickens
suffering from an infective diarrhœal enteritis, is ovoid, with rounded
ends, from 0.8 to 2_μ_ long and 0.3 to 0.4_μ_ thick; often in pairs.
Stains in the aniline colors. Ærobic (facultative anærobic)
non-liquifying, non-motile, asporogenous. Culture easy in neutral,
alkaline or slightly acid media at room temperature, or better in
thermostat. On gelatine plate films, it forms grayish white, superficial
colonies, becoming flat homogeneous white discs, brownish under
transmitted light. The deeper colonies are small spherical and brown or
yellowish by transmitted light. On agar it forms a thin gray layer with
irregular margins, which extends over the entire surface. In bouillon it
causes turbidity and in 24 hours a precipitate of bacilli to the bottom.
=Pathogenesis.= Chickens inoculated hypodermically or intravenously die
in 1 to 5 or 6 days with peritonitis and intense intestinal congestion.
Fed in vegetable food it is harmless, but with animal food virulent.
Rabbits and pigeons are immune.
Pond water is a common source of casual infection, also dung heaps in
which carcasses of little chicks have been buried. Summer is the period
of greatest prevalence, as there is the best opportunity for the
multiplication of the germ, and the drying of the ponds concentrates the
product.
The bacillus is found on the intestinal mucous membrane, and in the
mucus and in advanced stages, in the blood, spleen, liver and kidneys.
=Bacillus Coli Communis=, the familiar bacillus of the healthy bowel, is
charged by Lignieres with causing a fowl enteritis and probably does so
as in mammals when the mucosa has become diseased and non-resistant. At
the same time there are so many closely allied forms or varieties of
this bacillus found in different intestinal diseases, that it may well
be that the pathogenic agent is a modified form or “sport” from the
parent microbe, though no clearly defined peculiarities can be
established by cultures.
The typical colon bacillus is 2 to 3 _μ_ long by 0.4 to 0.6 _μ_ broad,
with rounded ends, but it may be ovoid or even round, or it may be 5 _μ_
long. It stains readily with aniline colors, bleaches with iodine. It is
ærobic, facultative anærobic, non-motile, non-liquifying, and
asporogenous. It ferments all sugars producing gas, acidifies its
culture fluids, and coagulates milk. It grows freely at room
temperatures in peptonized gelatine, agar and bouillon and on potato.
Stab cultures in gelatine have a moss-like tufted appearance.
=Pathogenesis.= Injections subcutem, and into the veins and ingestion
with food all failed to infect the chicken, while the pigeon died in 24
hours from intravenous injection and in 12 to 18 days from 1 c.c. given
subcutem. In rabbits and guinea-pigs hypodermic injection caused
abscess, while pleural and peritoneal injections killed in 24 to 48
hours. Rabbits are unaffected by intravenous injection, while
guinea-pigs die in 1 to 3 days.
=Bacillus of Duck Cholera= found by Cornil and Toupet in the blood of
ducks suffering from a diarrhœal enteritis, is 1 to 1.5μ long, by 0.5μ
broad, with rounded ends. It is ærobic, non-liquifying, non-motile and
asporogenous. Stains in the aniline colors and bleaches in iodine.
=Pathogenesis.= In morphology and cultures it resembles the bacillus of
fowl cholera, but it fails to infect chicken, pigeon or rabbit. It
infects ducks readily by ingestion or hypodermic inoculation.
=Spirillum Metchnikowi= was found in 1888, by Gamaleia in the ingesta of
chickens dying in Russia of a choleræic enteritis. It resembles the
cholera spirillum, but is shorter, broader and more curved. Its size
varies, being twice as broad as the cholera spirillum, when found in
pigeons. It may be 0.8μ long, by .5μ broad, furnished with one polar
flagellum and very motile. It stains in aniline colors and bleaches in
iodine. Grows readily in common media at room temperature, and is killed
in five minutes by 122° F.; renders milk strongly acid, coagulating it,
and perishes in the acid. In eggs turns the albumen yellow and the yolk
black. In gelatine it forms transparent colonies and in potato pale
brown.
=Pathogenesis.= By inoculation it infects chickens, pigeons and
guinea-pigs, while rabbits and mice are refractory except to large
doses. By ingestion it infects chickens and guinea-pigs but not pigeons.
Infection takes place easily by the air passages. In all cases alike the
lesions are concentrated in the intestines.
_Lesions._ These are very similar in the different forms. The intestine
is violently congested and contains a quantity of yellowish green
mucopurulent or serous fluid. The mucosa is infiltrated, softened and
even abraded by the desquamation of epithelium. The liver is greatly
enlarged and softened and gorged with blood, and the gall bladder
filled. The spleen is enlarged and pale, contrary to what is seen in
fowl cholera, and the kidneys are congested. The heart is flaccid, soft,
petechiated, and the pericardium is the seat of serous effusion.
_Symptoms._ In the _acute form_ there is dullness, langor, inappetence,
ardent thirst, pale comb, and greenish fæces. Later the feathers are
erect, the wings and tail droop, the head sinks, the patient gapes
frequently, walks unsteadily, and a liquid bluish green diarrhœa sets
in, which later becomes yellow and bloody. The somnolence increases, the
walk becomes more unsteady, or the patient sinks down with eyes half
closed and refuses to rise. As the disease advances the comb becomes
violet, the dark shade constantly increasing and a glairy grayish mucus
is discharged from the nose and bill. The temperature which was at first
raised 1° or 2°, falls 2° or 3° below the normal prior to death, which
may be deferred to near the end of the second week.
In the chronic cases the disease may drag along for three weeks, the
emaciation, pallor and weakness constantly increasing and the feathers
around the anus soiled and matted together by the fœtid liquid
discharges. There may be remissions which go on to complete
convalescence but more commonly an exacerbation occurs which proves
fatal in a day or two.
_Diagnosis._ From fowl cholera this may be distinguished by the fact
that it is confined to one farm or flock of turkeys, chickens or ducks,
proving most deadly in early summer, to the broods of the same spring,
and at the commencement of the epizootic, and proving less and less so
as time passes. The immunity of rabbits even when inoculated is a
further distinguishing feature. From intestinal parasitism it is
distinguished by the color of the discharges, and the absence of worms
and their eggs from these liquids.
_Mortality_ is often very high. Klein found it 80 per cent.
_Prevention._ Remove the infected from the flock (with ordinary fowl it
is often best to kill and burn or bury them), keep the poultry house and
yard scrupulously clean of droppings and sprinkle it occasionally with a
3 per cent. solution of sulphuric acid. The poultry house may be
fumigated with sulphur (1 ounce to the cubic yard), or the walls and
roosts may be washed with a solution (1:12) of bisulphide of carbon in
liquid vaseline. The diseased must be removed as soon as they are
detected and food and water must be given pure. If pure water is not
available, boil it or render it acid by sulphuric acid (1:33), and feed
grain, cooked roots, bran and bread with more or less green food.
In the case of valuable birds immunization may be secured by inoculating
with the virulent blood or culture so diluted that not more than one or
two of the germs shall be inserted in each case or the virulent liquid
may be heated for 20 minutes to a temperature of 55° C (121° F) and then
injected in a dose of 2 drops.
_Treatment._ If it is decided to treat the sick they should be placed
together in safe seclusion from all others. Feed with mush or cooked
roots or vegetables adding salol ½ dr. naphthol 1 dr. and quinia 1 dr.
to the food of 15 or 20 fowls. Nitrate of bismuth and powdered charcoal
may be added in moderate quantities. As drink give water containing 2%
of sulphuric acid. Antiseptic enemata may be added in the case of very
valuable birds, salol, naphthol, boric acid, salicylate of soda, or
solution of carbolic acid or creosote. Stimulants and tonics are highly
esteemed by some, and Cadeac recommends the free use of the following
mixture: powdered fennel, anise, coriander and quinia of each 5 drs.,
gentian 10 drs., ginger 12 drs., ferric sulphate 2½ drs.