Symptoms: Want of appetite, hard, brown excrement in small quantities; apathy. Causes : Unsuitable or bad food, and consequent disturbed condition of the gall and other digestive fluids. Treatment: Light food, but little green food, some salt, and tepid drinking water; a tea-spoonful of lukewarm Bordeaux wine, with a small piece of sweet almond or walnut, often renders good service. Zurn recommends also an infusion of peppermint (68) or calamus root (39) three times daily, a teaspoonful for a dose; nevertheless I do not recommend this for parrots. In England a grain of cayenne pepper, or an infusion of the same, is given.

Flatulency, also called Windy Swelling, appears as a flat white swelling; is chiefly found among young birds, arises from disturbance of the digestion, and is, therefore, produced by unsuitable, bad, or over rich food; it is caused also by bites. It may be cured, if not severe, by scanty and meagre food and careful pricking of the bladder-like swellings; the air can then be pressed out gently, and the place should be rubbed with warm oil, or, if a large hole has been cut, it should be smeared with collodion (52).

Inflammation of the Stomach and Intestines (Catarrh in the Stomach and Intestines, or Inflammation of the Bowels). - This is unfortunately very common. Cause : Stale, or otherwise bad food; icy cold drinking water; cold in the stomach; eating some corrosive or poisonous substance; also too fresh seed, or wet green herbs; as well as, but this seldom occurs, the swallowing of metal, bone, glass, little stones, etc. Symptoms: Want of appetite, thirst, choking and vomiting, slimy, and even bloody, excretion, shivering, and weakness; the bird sits continually at the food trough and turns over the food without eating it; often the belly appears swollen and red. Treatment: Varies according to the cause. Quiet; warm poultices; also sand, as warm as is pleasant to the hand, which must be kept at the same temperature; a solution of tannin (82) and Glauber's salt (23) as a purge, two or three times daily. If the stomach be injured by glass or such like substances, mucilage of linseed with a little oil should be given; but it is usually in vain. The parasites mentioned on p. 55 also cause inflammation in the intestines, which shows itself in violent diarrhoea, immediate and extraordinary weakness and rapid death. In order to be assured of the cause, it is necessary to examine the excretions with a microscope. Treatment: Hypo-sulphide of natron (63) twice daily. Zurn recommends a tea-spoonful of pure glycerine daily and a solution of salicylic acid (73).

Poisoning in parrots usually arises only from three causes: Bitter almonds; phosphorus from loose lucifer matches; and oxalic acid from the cleaning of the cage. All are due to carelessness, and therefore watchfulness is the only precautionary measure possible. Symptoms of Poisoning with Bitter Almonds: Anxiety; staggering; falling, without being able to rise; trembling and cramp. Treatment: Dip the bird in cold water, or pour cold water over it; administer spirits of sal-ammoniac (75) or spirits of ether (29) every half-hour, or three times an hour. Symptoms of Poisoning by Phosphorus : Draggled plumage, want of appetite, purging, weakness. Treatment; Liquor chlori (15) every half-hour; rectified spirits of turpentine (83); and white of egg. Symptoms of Poisoning by Oxalic Acid: Staggering, helplessness, cramp. Remedy: White of egg and other mucilaginous substances; calcined magnesia (60). It must be remarked that the determination of the cause is in all cases just as uncertain as the treatment, and that there is no prospect of the latter being successful unless it is possible to ascertain that the bird has been poisoned, and how, for there are several other maladies which exhibit similar symptoms. At any rate, when poisoning of any kind is suspected, some mucilaginous coating substance, white of egg, infusion of althea, or linseed, and calcined magnesia (60), may be given with advantage.

Purging (Diarrhoea) arises from various causes, and consequently appears as a symptom in different diseases. It is necessary daily to look to the excrement of every parrot, to see if it maintains the condition mentioned on p. 53; if it becomes whiter, yellower, or more slimy, if the feathers under the tail stick together, and if the vent looks swollen or inflamed, then the cold in the intestines mentioned on p. 57 exists, and the remedies there given should be applied. If the excretion is whitish-green or chocolate coloured, becoming greener to greenish black, and of a sour, bad odour, if the appetite is quite gone, while the crop continues full, and there is great thirst, then there is severe inflammation of the intestines or stomach, and the bird mostly dies, from whatever cause the disease may-have arisen. Treatment: Do not stop the purging, keep warm, give rice water, calcined magnesia (60), or other mucilage; when of a dysenteric appearance, accompanied by severe pressing and bending of the hinder part of the body, and even bloody excretions, then give from half to one teaspoonful of castor oil (72) with the mucilage; if the excretions be blackish, half to a whole teaspoonful of red wine, one, two, or three times daily; also laudanum (65) twice daily; also a solution of nitrate of silver (27), one teaspoonful twice daily. The sticky feathers under the tail must be bathed and washed with warm water.

Costiveness may naturally arise from various other diseases, but also from disturbance of the digestion or from intestinal worms. Symptoms : Continual effort to void; tilting the hinder part of the body; ruffled feathers; melancholy; and want of appetite. Treatment: Above all things endeavour to administer an enema - that is to say, introduce warm oil (castor oil and olive oil in equal parts) by dropping it into the vent from the head of a pin - by this means, after several repetitions, incredibly large masses of excrement pass away. Also a simple water enema may be used by means of an indiarubber ball with a thin glass pipe having a rounded point; administer castor oil with mucilage once or twice daily in doses of one teaspoonful.

Typhus (Infectious Typhoid, called Cholera in Fowls). - Cause: Microcosms and bacteria, also microscopical vegetable parasites, which are very contagious. Symptoms: Want of appetite, sitting about in a melancholy manner with drooping wings; weakness; severe purging, with excretions of thin yellowish white slime (slimy or chalky purging), which then become greenish, and soil the belly very much, often accompanied with vomiting of a thin greenish fluid; severe thirst, trembling, bristled feathers; also staggering, and convulsions. Duration, from a day and a half to three days, but often for weeks; with parrots this is unfortunately not seldom the case. Preventative measures: Strict isolation of all newly bought birds and of those which have the disease; careful disinfection (17), and the utmost cleanliness. If the disease has broken out, the birds which are still healthy should get a solution of sulphide of iron (20) in their drinking water for about a fortnight. Treatment: A similar solution of sulphide of iron (20), one teaspoonful three or four times daily. Recovery is scarcely possible.

Blood-poisoning I have already described on p. 9, when speaking of importation, and the reader is requested first to refer there for its causes. The parrots which are subject to it, chiefly the Grey Parrots, arrive in Europe apparently quite healthy, well nourished, cheerful and with bright eyes; but, as I said before, at the latest in eight weeks, and usually much sooner, they are, almost without exception, devoted to death, and die most quickly when they receive drinking water, of which for this reason the dealers entirely deprive them. Symptoms: Bristling feathers, especially on the neck; sitting dull and melancholy; a change takes place in the bare skin around the eye, from pure white to a dull bluish or yellowish grey; refusal of food, and often, but not always, vomiting and purging, sometimes only the latter; shortness of breath and staggering, ending in death. Examinations by physicians (Dr. Grun, district physician in Gumbinnen; Dr. Wolf, private lecturer; and Dr. Moritz Lowinsohn, both of Berlin) have resulted in discovering appearances which are caused by decomposition of the blood, namely, dark thickish blood, not firmly coagulated, numerous dots of blood which have oozed from the lungs, sac of the heart, and covering of the brain; yellow fibrous excrescences on the lungs and the liver; scattered, red, inflammatory spots in the lungs; frequently there are light yellow wedge-shaped hard excresences on the liver. The latter is often enlarged, decayed, and of a purplish red, or quite pale waxy-yellow colour; there is also catarrh of the stomach and intestines, and at the time of death the symptom of choking, from flow of blood to the lungs, and the venous circulation of the right heart, of the great veins of the neck, and the veins of the soft membrane of the brain. In the decomposed blood there are bacteria of peculiar shapes like balls, sticks, and chains, and these prove beyond doubt poisoning of the serous fluid of the blood. These organisms of decay, if they are only present in small numbers, can be rejected by the body as soon as it has sufficient oxygen to breathe, as the bacteria of blood-poisoning are destroyed by oxygen, and nourished on the want of it. This miserable disease is extremely poisonous and very infectious, and, therefore, causes the illness of all arrivals as soon as one individual among them is attacked. The excretion may cause infection, even after months (Dr. Grun). Treatment recommended'. Liquor chlori (15 and 16), milk of sulphur (79), phosphoric acid (69), quinine (14), tannin (82), extract of ergot (21 and 22), salicylic acid (73 and 74), salicylate of soda (61 and 62), carbolic acid (43 and 45), and similar preparations, to be taken internally, or administered by subcutaneous injection; also chilies (50). A dealer in Leipsig claims to have attained the best results from giving yolk of egg, beaten up in a little water. The use of ozone water (66), or the influence of oxygen, according to Dr. Grun's prescription, up to the present gives no guarantee of recovery, and I must repeat my conviction, that all birds which are attacked with this disease are completely lost, and that, unfortunately, up to the present time we have no reliable remedy, nor yet the power to put a stop to this wretched trade (see p. 8). I cannot decide with certainty whether this disease of Grey Parrots is one and the same as the above described sickness, or typhus (infectious typhoid).