Aberrant Intestinal Protozoan Parasites in the Turkey

PLATE 48. During a study of tissues from a series of turkeys which had been included in several experiments designed to throw light on the transmission of the protozoan parasite producing the so called blackhead, the writer came upon a case which furnishes the text for this communication. The history of the animal (No. 98) is given in a recent paper (1). It was raised with eighteen others in an incubator and brooder. No adult turkeys or poultry had been on the grounds for many years. Nine young turkeys from an infected flock, imported July 8, had been kept confined in a distant enclosure. Hatched about May 15, it was well until July 22, when it appeared quiet, sleepy, and refused food. It was chloroformed in the hope of obtaining fresh tissues for histological examination of the intestines. The autopsy showed an absence of blackhead lesions. There was, however, a distinct increase in mucus in the ceca, and several coccidial cysts, measuring about 24 # by 17 u, were found in the feces passed during chloro-forming. The contents of the duodenum had a markedly yellowish coloration. The muscular tissue of the body was also tinged yellow-ish. Subsequent examination of tissues fixed in Zenker's fluid showed the presence of peculiar bodies in the subepithelial tissues of the villi of the small intestine, which were tentatively diagnosed as the asexual or schizogonic cycle of some coccidium. The apparently unusual position of the bodies in the adenoid tissue of the mucosa, where they were found in very large numbers, contrasted with the scarcity of the same within the epithelial layer where they, as will be shown 293