Clinico-pathological analysis of foal diseases from 237 autopsy cases

To elucidate the current status of foal diseases in Japan, clinico-pathological analysis was conducted on 237 foal autopsy cases. As a result, bacterial infection was identified as an important cause of foal death. Most of the bacteria isolated from these cases were ubiquitous, opportunistic, environmental organisms, known to be non-pathogenic to mature animals. Most of cases with bacterial infection were diagnosed as having hypogammaglobulinemia, i.e., failure of passive transfer. In addition, the mean weight of thymuses in foals affected by bacterial infection tended to be lower than that of foals without infection. These findings suggest that the common cause of foal diseases were mainly due to the opportunistic bacterial infections associated with the weakened immune function, serving as precursor to or promotor of infection.