[Recuperative processes in experimental Heterakis infections in chickens]

Studied were the recuperation processes in birds with Heterakis infection induced with the administration of 300 infective Heterakis eggs per bird, followed by phenotiazin worming at various intervals. It was found that the reconvalescence period sets in sooner and more effectively with the earlier removal of helminths, but not later than the 35th day after infection. The erythrocyte and leukocyte counts were found to come back to normal soonest, while the weight gain, the amount of hemoglobin, the percentage of pseudoeosinophiles and the gamma-globulins were normalized less quickly, and the total protein and the percent of lymphocytes were not normalized at all. Following Heterakis infection there set in changes in the organism which remain even when worming is carried out as early as the first days after the infection. Thirty-five days after the infection with Heterakis such changes were close to those which could not be involved in the reminiscence processes. On the sixtieth day of the infection process recuperation was impossible, and worming did not result in the removal of the helminths in connection with development of chronic typhlitis. It is suggested to undertake worming at intervals not longer than thirty days.