Biology_of_Mustelids_Vol_1.pdf

186.
In all four dead ermines autopsy revealed lesions in the lungs
sugg3stive of tUberculosis.
In all probability, death resulted from
this disease, while the administration of a large dose of bacterial cells
into the two animals only accelerated it.
This assumption is confirmed by
the presence of the same pathological changes in the lungs of the two uninfected
ermines which, as it were, served as controls.
The last two ermines remained alive despite repeated infection
with massive doses, by feeding them on diseased mice and by SUbcutaneous
injection.
One of these animals after Bach infection lost appetite and
its customary activity, but then rapidly got better.
In the second ermine
the disease ran a more severe course:
it lost much weight, and lay for
some time motionless and ate without getting up •
These experiments, carried out with a small number of animals,
do not allow final conclusions on the resistance of the ermine to tularaemia
infection, but they do however suggest that the Drmine is only weakly
su,sceptible, possessing consid6rElble resistance to tularaemia.
In natural conditions the contraction by ermines of tularaemia
is quite possible, particularly where there is tularaemia among the murine
rodents cr water rats with which the predator has direct and close contact.
It may indeed be fatal, but probably not frequently, so it is unlikely to be
a serious mortality factor.
In conclusion it should be noted, that of 1717 ermine carcasses
inspected, few of the organs of the chest and abdominal cavities bore
outward signs of invasion by helminths or by infectious or protozoal
diseases, which em~hasises
diseases.
the general resistance of the ermine to various