The Effect of Oral and Parenteral Administration of Antibiotics on Growth and Fecal Microflora

eral antibiotics to increse the growth rate of chicks adequately suppled with vitamin B12. Atkinson and Couch (1951) obtained a 25 % increase in both feed efficiency and growth with the addition of aureomycin to the diet of turkey poults. Elam, Gee and Couch (1951a) reported that the fecal microflora of the growing chick was influenced by the feeding of penicillin. These same workers (1951b) reported later that antibiotics may stim-ulate growth by some mechanism in addi-tion to the action on the aerobic micro-flora. Elam et al. (1953) reported that the administration of antibiotics had signif