Fog fever and acute respiratory syndromes of cattle

Breeze, Roger Gerard (1973) Fog fever and acute respiratory syndromes of cattle. PhD thesis, University of Glasgow.

Abstract

The primary purpose of this study was to identify the causes of acute respiratory distress in cattle and to define the pulmonary disease known as fog fever. A clinical and pathological field survey of acute respiratory distress syndromes in cattle was conducted during the years 1969-1972 and the main respiratory disorders of adult cattle were discovered. In addition, an ultrastructural and histochemical investigation was made to determine the structure of the normal bovine lung and of the alveolar wall in fog fever, since existing reports of the normal lung architecture in cattle were inadequate and there had been no electron microscopical study of fog fever. Finally, several experiments were conducted in order to investigate the aetiology of fog fever and the pathogenesis of the pulmonary lesions. In the first part of the thesis, the results of the clinical and pathological field survey are presented and the main pulmonary diseases of cattle are described, largely in pathological terms. Several of these diseases had not been identified or fully defined before this investigation. The ultrastructural and histochemical studies of the normal bovine lung are presented in the second part of the thesis. Although there have been previous reports of the electron microscopical appearance of the lungs of cattle, not all the cell types had been identified and the nomenclature was confused. In this section, there is also the first description of the fine structure of the alveolar wall in fog fever. Several workers have suggested that fog fever is a hypersensitivity reaction to Dictyocaulus viviparus and in the third section, there is an experimental investigation of this hypothesis. In this study, recovered cases of fog fever were challenged with infective third stage larvae of D. viviparus and with antigens derived from this parasite. It was concluded, from the results of these experiments, that there was no evidence to support the hypothesis. Pulmonary lesions comparable to those of fog fever have been produced in cattle by the administration of DL- or L-tryptophan, 5 methyl-indole and indoleacetic acid. In the fourth section of the thesis, further experiments with these compounds are described and the relationship between fog fever and this experimental lung disease are examined. Bordetella pertussis suspension has been used as an adjuvant in the production of reaginic antibodies. A preliminary investigation of the actions of this suspension in calves resulted in an acute respiratory distress syndrome which, in one instance, was accompanied by pulmonary lesions comparable to those of fog fever. The results and significance of this experiment are described in the final section.

• Item Type: Thesis (PhD)
• Qualification Level: Doctoral
• Additional Information: Adviser: H M Pirie
• Keywords: Animal diseases
• Date of Award: 1973
• Depositing User: Enlighten Team
• Unique ID: glathesis:1973-73951
• Copyright: Copyright of this thesis is held by the author.
• Date Deposited: 14 Jun 2019 08:56
• Last Modified: 14 Jun 2019 08:56
• URI: https://theses.gla.ac.uk/id/eprint/73951