The epizootic outbreaks of this disease in Japan have been reported by many workers. Recently, latent infection seems to be prevailing among laboratory animals especially mice, which occasionally develop symptoms while in use for experiments causing ambiguous results.
In order to prevent the introduction of salmonella carriers into laboratories, investigation was made on feces of mice to check for Salmonella organisms. The isolation method used was as follows:
A pellet of feces of an individual breeding mouse was introduced into a tube of selenite broth which was incubated for 18 hours when subculture was made on MaConkeys agar plate. After 24 hours of incubation, colonies which appeared likely to be Salmonella were tested by slide agglutination with a combined antiserum for S.
enteritidisand S.
typhimurium. The colonies giving positive reaction were inoculated on and to Kligler Iron Agar Slants.
By using this method, several breeding mouse colonies were checked and one of them was found to be salmonella positive (S.
enteritidis) .
From the excretion of Salmonella organisms in feces as checked occasionally on individual mice and the distribution of the organisms in tissues and organs of a mouse examined post-mortem, it was found that Salmonella negative in a fecal specimen from each individual does not necessarily indicate that it is not a carrier. In fact, about 51 percent of mice, of which no Salmonella organisms had been detected in fecal specimen before sacrifice was shown in post-mortem examination to contain the organisms in tissues or organs.
In conclusion, fecal examination would be of some value in detecting Salmonella positive colonies, however of less value in eliminating Salmonellosis from the individuals of a colony.
Most of the cultures of S.
enteritidisisolateded in the present study fermented sucrose.
The fact may indicate that a selective medium containing sucrose will possibly eliminate sucrose-positive Salmonella organisms as were the case in the present study.
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