The role of Corynebacterium pseudotuberculosis lung lesions in the transmission of this bacterium to other sheep.

Five groups of 5 shorn and 5 unshorn caseous lymphadenitis (CLA)-free Merino wether weaners were each placed in feedlot pens with 6 Merino ewes, 2 or more of which had CLA lung lesions but no discharging superficial lesions. The sheep were kept together for 5 months. Twenty-eight per cent of the shorn weaners and 20% of the unshorn weaners developed antibodies to Corynebacterium pseudotuberculosis. At slaughter, 8% of the shorn weaners and 12% of the unshorn weaners had CLA lesions in either lungs, lymph nodes or both. In the absence of contact with CLA-infected ewes, a control group of 5 shorn and 5 unshorn weaners failed to develop antibodies to C. pseudotuberculosis or CLA lesions in the same period. This showed that sheep with CLA abscesses in the lungs but no discharging superficial abscesses were a source of C. pseudotuberculosis infection to other sheep.

[Enlarged spectrum of tick transmitted spirochaetoses]. / Zum erweiterten Spektrum zeckenübertragener Spirochätosen.

After the successful identification of Borrelia burgdorferi as the cause of Lyme disease, a new tick-borne infection occurring in the United States, almost identical spirochaetes have been isolated from the tick Ixodes ricinus in Europe. As a result, the spirochaetal aetiology of skin diseases, which had long been recognized as tick-borne infections, namely erythema chronicum migrans with its neurological complications of the tick-borne meningopolyneuritis of Garin-Bujadoux-Bannwarth, acrodermatitis chronica atrophicans and lymphadenosis cutis benigna, could be confirmed by means of microbiological, histological and serological methods. On the basis of case histories it had already been assumed for some time that anetodermia maculosa and the localised sclerodermas might also be caused by a tick-borne agent. The results of serological investigations have now strengthened this assumption, although microbiological confirmation is still lacking.

Contagious streptococcal lymphadenitis in cats.

A Lancefield group G beta-hemolytic streptococcus was isolated from a group of laboratory cats with acute lymphadenitis of the head and neck and systemic signs of sepsis. The infection appeared to be transmitted by the oral route and was experimentally reproduced in cats after the isolant was inoculated by oral and subcutaneous routes.