Marek’s Disease: Scientific Basis and Methods of Control

Take a disease of complex pathology with inflammatory and neoplastic features, which affects lymphoid and neural tissues, belonging to a disease group which killed one chicken in five, and which defied efforts to understand and control it for !lOre than 50 years, and one can begin to appreciate the interest Marek's disease has received. Canpound these characteristics with the finding of the causal herpesvirus, its recog­ nition as the neoplasm first discovered to be so caused, and its pre­ vention by vaccination, and the special place of Marek's disease in veterinary medicine and comparative oncology becomes clear. This book sets out to provide an authoritative and corrprehensive account of knowledge of Marek's disease and its control. I hope that it will be of value to veterinary research workers, teachers and students who need information about the disease, to veterinarians, poultrymen and vaccine manufacturers who have to diagnose and control it, and to oncologists in other fields interested in comparative aspects. other reviews of the disease exist, of course, but this is the first multi­ authored book devoted to the subject.