THE INFLUENCE OF DIET UPON THE COURSE OF COCCI -
                    DIOSIS INFECTION IN CHICKENS,

(Reprinted from Poultry and Poultry Husbandry, dated 14th August 1931.)

[ Observations made at the Southern Table Poultry Experimental Station, at
Wye College, which tend to show that in Coccidiosis in Chickens the diet of birds
exerts a material influence upon the ailment. This is perhaps the first experi-
ment which so " strongly indicates that the nature of the ration plays a vital
part in determining whether chickens are going to withstand or succumb to
Coccidiosis infection, an infection which the great majority of chickens are
exposed to ".]

When a diet definitely deficient in certain essentials is fed to animals, clearly
defined symptoms of disease and pathological changes occur. Where disease is
caused by living organisms which are parasitic upon the animal body it is probable
that the nature of the diet may play contributory part in lessening or aggravating
the condition, but the function of diet in this respect is as yet not clearly
defined. Should the course of disease be influenced by diets which are not in the
strict sense deficient but considered as coming within the sphere of normal, the
question becomes one of practical moment.

These notes are concerned with observations made at the Southern Table
Poultry Experimental Station, Wye, which tend to show that in coccidiosis of
chickens the diet of the birds exerts a material influence upon the disease.

The contributory cause of outbreaks of coccidiosis is often obscure, though a
variety of plausible explanations may be advanced to account for outbreaks of the
disease. The soundness of these explanations is generally doubtful, and it has to
be remembered that with this disease care must be exercised to avoid placing
importance upon a factor which may be purely coincidental.

Every year coccidiosis causes a heavy mortality among fowls, but despite this
and the scientific interest of the problem comparatively few investigations of a
fundamental nature have been made upon the disease, and authoritative knowledge
is scanty regarding such aspects of the question as the plurality of species of
coccidia, the pathogenicity of possible different species, the lesions these produce
in the host bird, the resistance of the host to the invasive and destructive action

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