[Case of Pseudomonas aeruginosa infection in tropical snakes]

Microbiologic and morphologic studies were carried out with there tropical snakes (two Boa constrictor and one Pithon molurus) that contracted the disease and died. Pseudomonas aeroginosa was the only organism isolated from the affected portions of the oral cavity and the lung. It was found that all strains of the species isolated were sensitive to gentamycin, tobramycin, and polymixin B. Up to their death two of the animals were treated with tobramycin with no curative effect whatever. The morphologic lesions were confined to the oral cavity, the lung, and the skin only. Histologically, there were necrotic stomatitis and necrotic exudative pneumonia, diffuse fibrinoid degeneration of the connective tissue within all viscera, deposition of fibrinoid in the walls of the myocardial blood vessels, hyaline droplet degeneration of the hepatocytes and the kidney epithelium, and focal infiltrations of pseudoeosinophile leukocytes in the spleen. It is believed that due to the irreversible injuries of the internal parenchymal organs all treatment in the advanced stages of the disease was ineffective even with the use of antibiotics to which the etiologic agent was strongly susceptible.