BULLETIN NO. 2O7. 



STUDIES IN FORAGE POISONING V. 



A Preliminary Report on 

 An Anaerobic Bacillus of Etiologic Significance. 



By 



Robert Graham, A. L. Brueckner and R. L. Pontius. 



Investigations conducted at this laboratory looking to the 

 determination of an. etiologic factor in forage poisoning have in 

 the main been devoted to organisms isolated from an oat hay. 

 The oat hay in question was originally associated with a nat- 

 ural outbreak of this disease among horses and mules in Cen- 

 tral Kentucky. Preliminary feeding experiments with the 

 oats, reported in another paper 1 , furnished conclusive evidence 

 that this forage, straw and grain (Figs. 1, 2 and 3), incorpo- 

 rated the primary etiologic factor which subsequently to ingestion 

 by horses and mules engendered clinical manifestations of for- 

 age poisoning and death. The oats were found, upon thresh- 

 ing, to be contaminated with chicken feces. These feces proved 

 fatal to a horse when fed, disguised in wholesome feed, as did 

 water in which the oats had been immersed, when freely sup- 

 plied to horses. The feeding of the oat grain to guinea pigs, 



1 Proceedings U. S. Live Stock Sanitary Ass'n, 1915, pp. 22-42; Jour. 

 Amer. Vet. Med. Ass'n, Feb. 1916, 48, New Series 1, No. 5, pp. 574-590. 



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