Mycoplasma infection of calves. 1. Detection of Mycoplasma in pneumonias and arthritis in calves
Bocklisch, H.; Pfützner, H.; Zepezauer, W.; Kühn, U.; Ludwig, H.J.
Archiv für Experimentelle Veterinarmedizin 37(3): 435-443
1983
ISSN/ISBN: 0003-9055 PMID: 6615140 Document Number: 212168
Occurrence, some of it enzootic, of pneumonia and polyarthritis was recorded in calves orginating from herds with M. bovis mastitis as well as in animals on industrialized calf-rearing units and in fattening bull herds. Mycoplasms, most of them M. bovis alone or in conjunction with bacterial pneumonia pathogens and viruses, were isolated from the respiratory tract of animals with pneumonia. In most cases of catarrhal and catarrhal-purulent bronchopneumonia, M. bovis was the only detectable pathogen, though bacteria were often additionally present in cases of fibrinous-necrotizing and abscessed pneumonia. M. bovis was regularly cultured from diseased joints of calves with polyarthritis, in parallel with negative bacteriological findings. Pneumonia and concomitant arthritis were recorded in many calves and found to have been caused by M. bovis. Such manifestations constituted a pneumonia-arthitis syndrome.