Case Histories of Clostridium Hemolyticum Infection

Abstract

My topic today is case histories of clostridium hemolyticum infection. We call this disease "red water" down in our part of the country. It is also knows as bacillary hemoglobinuria.

In Florida, red water is a relatively new disease. So far as I can find out, it was first suspected as the cause of several deaths in a Brahman herd in the Kissimmee River Valley area around 1957 or 1958. Five years later, in 1962, it was positively diagnosed by laboratory confirmation some 75 to 80 miles to the south in a herd located on the northwest shore of Lake Okeechobee, where the Kissimmee River runs into the lake. Since then, it has spread to just about every area in southern Florida.

I mention where the disease was first found because I feel that it has something to do with the spread of the disease in our area. But first, let me say something about the causitive organism, how it affects cattle, and its diagnosis.

Red water is caused by one of the clostridial organisms, clostridium hemolyticum. Bovine Medicine and Surgery describes the organism as a noncapsulated, sluggishly motile spore forming, obligate anaerobic rod. They also state that culture requirements are most exacting and that it closely resembles Cl novyi and Cl sardellie in culture features, but is an immunologically distinct species. On cultural media, atoxin is produced that has a twofold affect on body tissue. One causes hemolysis of erythrocytes and the other, tissue necrosis. Hemolysis and liver necrosis is also found in natural infection. It is gram positive for the first 24 hours of growth on culture, then becomes gram negative.