Prevalence and epizootiology of equine salmonellosis.

Feces from 1,451 horses entering a veterinary hospital over a 13-month period were cultured for salmonella. A total of 46 horses (3.2%) yielded 1 or more salmonella-positive fecal cultures. Twenty horses were found to be excreting salmonella in the feces on admission, and 5 of these later had severe diarrhea associated with enteric salmonellosis. Abdominal surgery and other severe stresses were associated with all cases of severe enteric salmonellosis. Serotypes of salmonella isolated included Salmonella agona (15), S anatum (14), S typhimurium (7), S typhimurium var copenhagen (4), S infantis (2), S montevideo (1), S meleagridis (1), S drypool (1), and an unnamed Salmonella serotype (1). Seven deaths were attributed to 4 serotypes (S typhimurium, 3; S anatum, 2; S typhimurium var copenhagen, 1; and S montevideo, 1). A marked seasonal incidence is isolations was found with isolations highest in later summer to early fall and lowest in the spring. It was also found that horses can shed salmonella intermittently, and a minimal of 5 consecutive negative fecal cultures is recommended before considering a horse not to be infected with salmonella.     

Bovine salmonellosis: experimental production and characterization of the disease in calves, using oral challenge with Salmonella typhimurium.

A highly virulent strain of Salmonella tyhimurium was given orally to produce disease experimentally in 21 normal colostrum-fed calves 3 to 9 weeks old. The challenge inoculum varied from 10(4) to 10(11) organisms. The disease was characterized by fever, depressed attitude, and decreased appetite. Many calves given larger challenge dose levels also had diarrheic feces containing mucus, fibrin, and blood. Fecal cultures were positive for salmonella. Septicemia occurred in some calves (9 of 15 calves cultured were positive). Eleven calves died and 10 calves survived challenge exposure. Survival was inversely related to the size of the challenge inoculum and directly related (although to a lesser degree) to age of the calf. White blood cell total and differential counts were variable. Both neutropenia and neutrophilia were observed. Plasma proteins decreased markedly in calves with diarrhea, probably indicating fecal protein loss. Fibrinogen increased during the acute stages of diarrhea.     

Functional recovery from spinal cord trauma following normothermic irrigation in dogs.

The spinal cords of 16 normal dogs were exposed via dorsal laminectomies and damaged with a known impact force. In eight dogs the injured portions of the spinal cords were irrigated, without durotomy, for 2 h with normothermic saline. The remaining eight dogs were used as controls and were not irrigated. The results showed that normothemic irrigation of damaged spinal cords, immediately after impact trauma, had a significant beneficial effect on the functional recovery of the spinal cords.