Effect of Nutritional Restrictions on Experimentally-Induced Erythroblastosis

Abstract INTRODUCTION LEUCOSIS, always a major disease problem in laying hens, has been more evident in recent years in commercial broilers (Dobbins, 1963; Fredrickson and Burmester, 1964). Visceral lymphomatosis is the most common form of this disease. Reproducing this disease under laboratory conditions requires the use of inbred lines of chickens and lengthy incubation periods making research tedious and expensive. In recent years it has become apparent that a single virus source can produce both visceral lymphomatosis and erythroblastosis (Walter et al., 1963; Burmester et al., 1959; Burmester and Fredrickson, 1962) as well as other manifestations of leucosis. The size, shape and structure of virus particles, as well as their location and distribution in the tumor cells of the spleen and liver of chickens with visceral lymphomatosis are similar to that found in chickens with erythroblastosis (Dmochowski et al., 1959). In view of the close relationship between erythroblastosis and visceral lymphomatosis…