PULPY KIDNEY

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXXVII, Issue 19308, 8 October 1932, Page 16

PULPY KIDNEY

ABSORPTION OF POISON. In the report of the eighth annual meeting of the Royal Agricultural Society, the departmental report on pulpy kidney states: “After several years of concentrated effort in the lambing season. Mr. Gill, of the Wallaceville Laboratory, has been able to show that pulpy kidney is actually due to an absorption of poison produced in the intestine by certain bacilli acting abnormally. The poisons generated by this bacillus are extremely potent and by inoculating a small amount into lambs, cr mice, the animals die very quickly. The poisons act. too. only when a certain amount of gastritis and enteritis is present and these reactions are brought about mainly by too much rich food, where the fat lamb dies; and for other diet indiscretions such as eating debris, fibre and earth, etc., in the case of poorer lambs. Mr. Gill may be right, but it must be a queer kind of bacilli which attacks the healthiest and strongest lambs. With practically every other form of infestation it is the “piner” which is most susceptible to attack. The other theory, that it is some deficiency in the ewe. and therefore also in the lamb at birth, a deficiency which milk cannot supply, seems nearer the mark. The fact that losses cease almost as soon as the lamb begins to eat grass also adds weight to the latter theory. However, if Mr. Gill can find a bacillus eating bacilli and thereby put an end to losses from plupy kidney, wc will take our hats off to him.