988 
ANIMAL DISEASES 
were concerned about the fact that it was not 
cleared for cats. It's not available now on the 
market, so we have not been able to use it in 
any of our animals. We are now routinely using 
Vermiplex and Yomesan. 
Stevan Sibinovic, Bionetics Research Labo- 
ratory, Kensington, Maryland: I congratulate 
you on the number of animals which you ob- 
served and I think it is excellent. I'd be inter- 
ested in the incidence of spontaneous neoplasm 
in the dogs and cats ? 
Dr. Palmer: We rarely see neoplasms, ex- 
tremely rarely: but, they're only in our facility 
for a period of forty-five days. These are rela- 
tively young animals usually and they don't 
stay very long. 
Dr. Sibinovic : Thank you. 
Chairman: What is the incidence of pneu- 
monia or other critical entities in dogs held 
after several weeks at the quarantine area? 
Dr. Palmer: Pneumonia can occur at any 
time. We suffered an epizootic during 1969 of a 
clinical syndrome, which we called the bleeder 
syndrome, v/here an animal appeared healthy 
one day and was dead the next with a hemor- 
rhagic type of pneumonia. This disease occurs 
virtually at any time. In the animals which 
we're purchasing now, after thirty days of 
quarantine the incidence of pneumonia has been 
13 out of 17 deaths, or 13 of 2,242 animals. I've 
not figured out the percentages. I don't have 
good data to show accurate incidences of these 
diseases. For instance, dermatophytic fungus, 
ringworm, is a very common disease in cats, but 
it's not a major problem in our programs be- 
cause the animals can still be used for certain 
things. The greatest number of pneumonias in 
dogs occurs during the first thirty days. And 
yet, in many of the dogs at the end of the thirty 
day period, if you examine carefully, you can 
detect consolidated lungs, which are not normal 
at that point. They need additional time to de- 
velop, yet few of those animals die. 
Chairman: I asked that because my area 
handles most of the dogs produced by the NIH 
quarantine and we noticed the difference in the 
thirty day quarantine dog and the forty-five day 
quarantine dog in the laboratory. And we have 
emphasized this procedure. We not only quaran- 
tine dogs, but we've transported them from the 
Animal Center to the NIH reservation which 
seems to be a tremendous stress. The dogs will 
break with pneumonia or other conditions the 
day after arrival. Most of them stay around the 
laboratory pre-op holding area for several days 
before being used in the laboratory. So we have 
found an advantage in this. 
Keith G. McCullagh, Cleveland Clinic: Can 
I just ask you who your present vendor is and 
how you made the decision on which company 
to choose ? 
Dr. Palmer : We purchase on an annual con- 
tract. The current vendor is Lone Trails Ken- 
nels in Friedensberg, Pennsylvania. The con- 
tract is negotiated. We have, in the past, had 
two vendors to supply our needs. The use of 
random source dogs at NIH has dropped from 
almost 5,000 in 1966 and 1967 to about 2,000 or 
less at the present time. Dr. Potkay will tell you 
all about this Sunday morning. We don't really 
select the vendor, although we try to buy from 
the best available source and we require that 
the man pass the inspection by NIH personnel ; 
not just that he's a licensed vendor. 
Dr. Thayer: I'm sorry, but I can't stay out 
of this. You, Dr. Pierce, mentioned that you saw 
a great difference in your NIH dogs which were 
quarantined thirty days and forty-five, because 
they were transported to your facility. I don't 
know how far your facility is from where the 
quarantine area is. Every one of our dogs, after 
its quarantine period, is transferred; admit- 
tedly it's only a five mile transfer, but he is 
transferred. The point that I'm getting at is 
that I still think there's something wrong. 
When I look at your mortality and morbidity 
figures and, in particular, the testing for the 
heart worm business about which you were 
talking, I say you're still not doing the program 
you should. Mine are less than yours and I don't 
do anything like you do, you see? That's my 
only comment. 
Furthermore, I feel that you have made the 
same mistake that a number of other institu- 
tions have been making in not having two 
classes of dogs and cats, whether they be sepa- 
rate quarantine colonies or whatever — but one 
design for the acute animal. These animals 
should certainly have some screening and they 
should have some quarantining, but they do not 
