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A single strain of Staphylococcus aureus was used to study the pathogenesis of osteomyelitis in chickens. The disease was consistently reproduced in 6-week-old broiler chickens when 1 X 10(5) or more organisms were given intravenously. Severe feed restriction, debeaking, and single or multiple injections of corticosteroids delayed the appearance and decreased the severity of lesions due to staphylococcal infection. This increased resistance was associated with increased numbers of circulating heterophils and monocytes. No correlation between the presence of tibial dyschondroplasia and osteomyelitis was found.

A flock of 16-week-old layer replacement pullets housed in cages since 1 day old experienced an outbreak of necrotic enteritis with concurrent coccidiosis 3 weeks after debeaking.

N THE late 'fifties the use of tranquilizers in poultry was extensively explored.1'213'4'5'6 Given as continuous medication in the diet, the anti-stress and antihypertensive agent reserpine has found extensive use, particularly for the prevention and treatment of aortic rupture in turkeys.7'8'9 Since reserpine, for practical purposes, is insoluble in water, it is not suited for water medication of poultry. There are times when a water-soluble tranquilizer would be advantageous, especially where birds are to be medicated for short periods, e.g., during handling associated with catching, vaccination, and debeaking. For spot treatment, feed medication is frequently not the most desirable method of administration, because of difficulties in prompt administration and withdrawal of medication. If there is an immediate need for medication, the unmedicated feed must be removed from the feeders before the medicated feed can be provided. Frequently, the required medicated feed is not available and the medication must be mixed into the feed before it can be delivered to the farm. The ideal tranquilizer for handling poultry should possess the following characteristics: it must be active in water or feed; have a rapid onset, moderate duration of activity, and a rapid recovery; and be rapidly excreted from the tissues. In the hope of finding a suitable preparation, various derivatives and analogs of reserpine were studied. This paper deals with SU-9064 (Ciba), one of a number of compounds investigated.