Document Type

Thesis - Open Access

Award Date

1973

Degree Name

Master of Science (MS)

Department / School

Biology and Microbiology

Abstract

“Domestic poultry constitutes the largest single reservoir of Salmonella organisms existing in nature,” stated J. E. Williams of the Southeast Poultry Research Laboratory, Athens, Georgia. He reported that the frequency of salmonellae reported in poultry is due to the high population exposed to salmonellae and the extensive programs involved in isolation and identification. The 1971 annual Summary of Salmonella published by the Center for Disease Control, Atlanta, Georgia reports 25,694 cases of salmonellosis in humans. This figure represents an increase of 6.1% over the 24,216 cases reported in 1970, and a 16.6% increase over the 21,413 cases reported in 1969. Correlation between human and nonhuman sources is suggested by the fact that 5 Salmonella serotypes are common to the 10 most isolated serotypes of both groups. The correlation of serotypes isolated from human and nonhuman sources suggests that nonhuman sources play a very important part in human epidemiology. Nineteen of 42 major Salmonella outbreaks were caused by specific contaminated foods. Six outbreaks were caused by turkey, one by turkeys eggs and one by chickens. Poultry products accounted for 479 individual cases of salmonellosis. Thirty-seven percent or 2,116 isolations of Salmonella were made from domestic fowl and their by-products. The widespread incidence of avian salmonellosis has resulted in salmonellosis becoming one of the most important egg-borne bacterial diseases of poultry. Contamination of shells has become one of the major problems of the poultry egg industry, but Salmonella knows no international boundaries and only a few host barriers. Control by nationwide programs has been hindered by numerous obstacles. Salmonellosis continues to be a problem to all phases of the poultry industry and to consumers of their products. The purposes of this thesis problem are: (1) to study egg shell penetration properties of Salmonella enteritidis serotype saint-paul; (2) to determine the route of salmonellae through the shell membrane, yolk sac and albumin of the incubating egg, (3) to investigate the possibility of systemic embryonic infections via external contamination of preincubated eggs, (4) to study pathogenesis of salmonellae in embryos, "pips," "sleepers" and hatched chicks and (5) to establish a model by which pathogenesis of diseases could be studied using embryonic and newborn animals.

Library of Congress Subject Headings

Salmonellosis

Poultry -- Diseases

South Dakota State University Theses

Format

application/pdf

Number of Pages

66

Publisher

South Dakota State University

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