Further Evidence for the Role of the Bursa of Fabricius in Antibody Production

Removal of the bursa of Fabricius at 12 days was shown by Glick et al. (1956) to reduce the bird’s ability to produce antibodies to S. typhimurium. These results were confirmed and extended to include sheep-red-blood cells by Chang et al. (1957). These investigations indicate that the bursa of Fabricius plays a prominent role in the production of antibodies. The purpose of this paper is to report the effect of injections of crude bursa suspensions on antibody production in bursectomized birds. One hundred and sixty New Hampshire females were placed in a starting battery and fed a commercial broiler mash. Eighty birds randomly selected from the 160 New Hampshire females, were bursectomized at 2 weeks of age. Twenty-four of the bursectomized birds were equally divided into four decks of the same battery. Six control females were placed in the fifth deck of the battery. The remaining birds were placed on . . .