Treatment of a Virus Disease of Chickens with Sulphonamides

Abstract

BLAKEMORE has published¹ an account of a disease produced in young chicks by the inoculation of suspensions of tissues from typical cases of fowl paralysis (neurolymphomatosis). While the lesions were superficially unlike those of typical fowl paralysis, the course and pathology suggested that the experimentally produced disease was an acute form of fowl paralysis. Glover² produced a similar disease in chickens by the inoculation of tissue suspensions from a turkey affected with neurolymphomatosis. It was shown that the infective agent was filterable³. During the course of experiments which have been carried out in this Laboratory, a number of strains of virus which originated from paralysed fowls have been studied. Intraperitoneal inoculation of young chicks with virus results in the production of lesions which are primarily necrotic and are most conspicuous in the liver and heart. Visceral lesions become visible to the naked eye 48–72 hours after inoculation. They increase in extent and frequently reach maximum severity 6–8 days after infection. In the experiments recorded here, all chicks were killed 5–10 days after infection. Diagnosis was based upon the presence or absence of macroscopic lesions.