NOTE ON GOOSE SEPTICÆMIA.
As these pages are going through the press, Cooper Curtice’s bulletin on Goose Septicæmia comes to hand.
This affection in 1900 caused a loss of 3,200 geese in July and August to Mr. Cornell, a Rhode Island owner. Mr. Snell lost 500.
Bacteriology. The blood and tissues swarmed with a minute bacillus having the general morphological staining and biological characters of that of chicken cholera and rabbit septicæmia. It differed from these in the failure to infect chickens, whether inoculated or fed to them. It proved deadly to geese, ducks, pigeons, rabbits, mice, and more slowly to Guinea pigs. Geese were infected by inoculation or feeding of the germs, ducks from inoculation only.
Symptoms. The geese were often found dead, and even in those noticed ill, death supervened so early that no very diagnostic symptoms were made out. The affected geese moved tardily and unsteadily, and failed to keep with the remainder of the flock. Some burrowed the head in the dirt and twisted it around, indicating, it was supposed, spasms of the throat. Some were seized with the death agony in a few minutes; in others the illness lasted for hours, and from experimental cases it was concluded that the period from infection to death, in the majority of cases, did not exceed thirty-six hours. Some were believed to merge into a chronic condition, but the owner thought that none recovered. No diarrhœa is noted.
Lesions. The head was the seat of marked venous and capillary congestion, suggesting asphyxia. The bill and throat contained a large quantity of tenacious mucus, which was especially viscid in the nose. Extravasated blood in abundance was present in the gastro-intestinal mucosa and contents, much of it more or less digested. At some points there was abundant mucous exudate; at others the folds were only marked by punctiform petechiæ, or by bloody patches formed by their coalescence. The cæca were usually normal.
The liver showed numerous punctiform extravasations and yellow patches of necrosis extending more or less deeply into the hepatic tissue. Other congestions were seen in individual cases, implicating, in one instance, the heart and pericardium, and in another the lungs. Petechiæ were frequent on the pericardium and other mucosæ. The blood was usually black, tarry, and with little disposition to brighten on exposure to the air.
Diagnosis. It is recognized as an infection of domestic water fowl by its attacking the larger proportion of that class of animals exposed to it. It is supposed that those which escape do so because of immunity due to a previous attack, or by reason of the absence of any wound of the mouth, throat or stomach by which the germ might enter. It is distinguished from fowl (chicken) cholera by the immunity of the chicken in this case. It is differentiated from Klein’s diarrhœal enteritis of fowls, by the fact that neither pigeon nor rabbit is immune. From the duck cholera of Cornil and Loupet, it is diagnosed by the immunity of the chicken only, while the rodents and pigeon suffer.
The germ is manifestly one of the family of bacilli of the colon group, found in the different septicæmias, but sufficiently distinctive from these other forms, in its pathogenesis, to demand a separate place in connection with sanitary work.
Treatment is hopeless from our present point of view.
Prevention is the rational resort. In the case of those raising geese from the egg, it is imperative to abandon, for the season at least, any pastures that may have become contaminated. It would be better still to subject such pastures to cultivated crops for one or two years. The pens should be thoroughly disinfected or abandoned and burned. Mr. Cornell used his infected pens for ducks without evil result. The drainage from infected pastures or pens must be guarded against, no geese nor ducks being allowed on land through which, or on which it passes, and no water receiving such drainage being employed for geese. In the case of feeders or handlers of geese who buy the birds in large numbers from many sources, a subsidiary quarantine should be constantly maintained, by enclosing the birds in as small groups as possible in separate pens, so that infection in one pen will not endanger the whole flock. When infection is shown in a pen, the diseased birds should be at once destroyed and burned, the pen thoroughly disinfected, and the other birds returned, or better, divided up into still smaller lots, so that infection showing in one of these will not endanger the great number taken from the original infected pen. The utmost care should be taken to maintain the most perfect cleanliness in the pens of exposed and suspected geese, and to sprinkle the floors and manure liberally with an antiseptic, such as a solution of sulphuric acid in water (2:100), or of phenic acid (3:100), or of a combination of the two. This will do much to prevent the hatching of flies to act as infection-bearers, and if these can be further excluded by screens the condition will be still more satisfactory. Vermin of all kinds should be excluded and whenever possible, separate feeders and attendants should be furnished for the suspected geese, and those that have not been exposed.