Evening Republican, Volume 14, Number 279, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 23 November 1910 — INFANTILE PLAGUE IN HENS [ARTICLE]

INFANTILE PLAGUE IN HENS

Form of Paralysis Which Baffles Physicians and Scientists Attacks Fowls in Maryland. Infantile paralysis, the dread disease which is baffling physicians and scientists and which is epidemic in the vicinity of Bethesda, Md., is extending its ravages to poultry along the Washington-Rockville turnpike. More than 100 fowls have died in agony corresponding to that produced in humans by the disease, all of them showing symptoms of paralysis at the time, of death. Each day the number of affected increases, according to physicians and residents of that community. On the estate of Morgan H. Beach, former district attorney, 35 chickens were stricken with the disease and died. At the residence of Henry J. Hunt 111, who himself is afflicted with the disease, two chickens have been made blind, and on the R. C. Drum estate five ducks, after running about the yard all night, giving evidence of extreme suffering, were found in the morning huddled together dead. It is the opinion of Dr. J* L. Lewis, who within the last 10 weeks has treated six cases of infantile paralysis among humans, that the ducks and chickens died from the disease, and that the epidemic is spreading among fowls of the barnyard. ——-7 Fear of spreading the malady among the people of Bethesda and vicinity has placed a ban on chicken as a table staple. From almost every farm in that part of Maryland, Dr. Lewis says, he is receiving reports of the mysterious and sudden death of fowls, and he feels certain that the disease is responsible for the loss. “I am working on the supposition that these fowls are infected with infantile paralysis,” said Dr. Lewis, “and it is quite possible that the disease has been communicated to persons along the turnpike through such infection. The symptoms, so far as I have been able to determine, are the same as those of the disease in humans. “Within the last ten weeks I have had six cases and all occurred in separate households, the members of which had no communioation with the members of any other afflicted families. This would leave room for the theory that the fowls are the agents of communication of the disease, and that those dying now have the malady.”