egnin was the strong smelling vermifuge
assafoetida, known sometimes by the suggestive name of "devil's dung." It
has one of the most disgusting oders possible, and is not very pleasant to
be near. The assafoetida was mixed with an equal part of powdered yellow
gentian, and this was given to the extent of about 8 grains a day in the
food. As an assistance to the treatment, with the object of killing any
embryos in the drinking water, fifteen grains of salicylate of soda was
mixed with a pint and three-quarters of water. So successful was this, that
on M. De Rothschild's preserves at Rambouillet, where a few days before
gapes were so virulent that 1,200 pheasants were found dead every morning,
it succeeded in stopping the epidemic in a few days. But to complete the
matter, M. Megnin adds that it is always advisable to disinfect the soil of
preserves. For this purpose, the best means of destroying any eggs or
embryos it may contain is to water the ground with a solution of sulphuric
acid, in the proportion of a pennyweight to three pints of water, and also
birds that die of the disease should be deeply buried in lime.

Fumigation with carbolic acid is an undoubted cure, but then it is a
dangerous one, and unless very great care is taken in killing the worms,
the bird is killed also. Thus many find this a risky method, and prefer
some other. Lime is found to be a valuable remedy. In some districts of
England, where lime-kilns abound, it is a common thing to take children
troubled with whooping-cough there. Standing in the smoke arising from the
kilns, they are compelled to breathe it. This dislodges the phlegm in the
throat, and they are enabled to get rid of it. Except near lime-kilns, this
cannot be done to chickens, but fine slaked lime can be used, either alone
or mixed with powdered sulphur, two parts of the former to one of the
latter. The air is charged with this fine powder, and the birds, breathing
it, cough, and thus get rid of the worms, which are stupefied by the lime,
and do not retain so firm a hold on the throat. An apparatus has recently
been introduced to spread this lime powder. It is in the form of an
air-fan, with a pointed nozzle, which is put just within the coop at night,
when the birds are all within. The powder is already in a compartment made
for it, and by the turning of a handle, it is driven through the nozzle,
and the air within the coop charged with it. There is no waste of powder,
nor any fear