Abstract
TUBERCULOSIS among wild animals living in their natural state is almost unknown, and the announcement by Dr. A. Q. Wells of the Bureau of Animal Population, Oxford, of the discovery of this disease among wild voles is of great interest and, it may be, importance (Lancet, 1, No. 21, 1221, May 22, 1937). Since last February, Dr. Wells has found in 134 voles caseous lesions, like those of tuberculosis, in which bacilli having the peculiar and characteristic ‘acid-fast’ staining reaction of the tubercle bacillus were present. In addition, cultures made from the lesions yielded growths resembling those of the tubercle bacillus, and guinea pigs inoculated with the material developed tuberculosis. The voles had been sent from seven different stations in the British Isles, so that the disease seems to be wide-spread among these animals and not a chance occurrence in one locality, and the existence of tuberculosis among them may be of importance in the spread of this disease to domestic animals and to man. The wild vole (Microtus agrestis), known as the short-tailed field or grass ‘mouse’, is a common rodent in meadows, and several sub-species occur in the north. It is of interest in respect to ecology and distribution, for the animals are subject to wide fluctuations in population, increasing over a period of three to four years, and then suddenly decreasing to a low figure in one or two months, and it has been surmised that the decrease may be caused by the occurrence of some epidemic disease among them.
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Tuberculosis in Wild Voles. Nature 139, 917 (1937). https://doi.org/10.1038/139917a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/139917a0