Abstract
THE CAUSAL ORGANISM OF BRAXY IN SHEEP.— There has been much dispute regarding the essential symptoms and the causal organism of braxy. What may be called the old school considered the disease to be due to an anaerobic, motile, spore - bearing bacillus, giving rise to an inflammatory condition of the fourth stomach. But the latest review of our present state of knowledge, by Dr. J. P. McGowan (Centralbl. f. Bakteriol., Parasit., und Infektionskr., Jena, Bd. 91, 1923), shows that, in face of the criticism of continental workers and of the author himself, this view must be abandoned, for feeding or inoculation with the alleged causal organism fails to produce braxy. It would also appear that the symptoms usually considered to be those of braxy are in reality very rapid pSst-mortem putrefactive changes. Examination of very fresh carcases shows the abundant presence in pure culture of Bacillus bipolaris septicus ovium, inoculation with which reproduced the disease; and this would indicate that braxy is a hyperacute form of hsemorrhagic septicaemia. Sheep are predisposed to attack under conditions of lowered resistance, often dependent upon climatic factors, such as the presence of a large quantity of frosted grass in the food, or exposure to severe day and night fluctuations of temperature. Sheep which are feeding poorly seldom suffer from the disease, and to this fact the author attributes the success of the well-known pig-dung drench and of the “vaccines” prepared from non-causal bacilli, since both treatments throw the sheep seriously out of condition.
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Research Items. Nature 112, 843–844 (1923). https://doi.org/10.1038/112843a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/112843a0