The Early History of Infectious Laryngotracheitis

ported in which fowl pox apparently coexisted. Clinical signs were coughing with expulsions of blood and mucus as well as severe dyspnea (3). Necropsy records of specimens submitted for diagnosis to the Department of Veterinary Science, University of Massachusetts, indicate that a disease resembling infectious laryngotracheitis was observed in 1931 (19). Diagnostic laboratories reported a disease with similar signs during the mid 1920s. As with most emerging diseases, several names were used to identify this condition, including infectious bronchitis (2,3,6,24,25), tracheolaryngitis (36), infectious tracheitis (19), and avian diphtheria (23). There are also references in the literature to chicken flu and Canadian flu. The term infectious la-