Correlation of the Identity of Bile and Cecal Vibrios from the Same Field Cases of Avian Vibrionic Hepatitis

Abstract

Moore (11) was unable to demonstrate antibodies in the sera of birds experimentally infected with avian vibrionic hepatitis. Workers in Austria (4,7) and Germany (1,15) during 1963 and 1964 reported the presence of agglutinins against vibrio in the sera of naturally infected birds as well as in birds infected experimentally by oral, intraperitoneal, and intravenous routes. They and Levina (9) also reported the presence of large numbers of vibrio in the intestinal tracts of infected birds and assumed that these enteric vibrios were the same as those isolated from the bile. Indeed, the disease is called vibrionic entero-hepatitis in Russia. During investigation of the alimentary canal, by the present authors, for a possible role in the transmission of the disease, smears were made of the intestinal contents from various regions of the digestive tract. Large numbers of vibrio were seen in smears of cecal contents. The following work was done to establish whether cecal and bile vibrio isolates from the same birds in field cases of the disease were similar in: a) somatic antigenic structure; b) selected biochemical test reactions; and c) pathogenicity.