Abstract
Two goats were presented, separately, to Teaching Veterinary Hospital, GADVASU, Ludhiana (Punjab), India. The first goat was one year old male and the second goat was three year old female. The history revealed increased body temperature, loss of appetite, lethargy and progressive emaciation in both the cases. Duration of illness was eight days in male and eighteen days in female. The clinical examination revealed dullness and mild fever in both the cases with pre-scapular lymph nodes enlarged (Fig. 1). In female goat the submandibular lymphnodes were also enlarged. Aspirate from the prescapular lymphnode revealed thick white/yellow cheese-like pus (Fig. 2). The samples of pus were microbiologically examined to confirm the presence of bacteria. For isolation of bacteria, lymph node contents were inoculated on blood agar base (Merck, Darmstadt, Germany) supplemented with 5% defibrinated sheep blood and incubated aerobically for 48 h at 37˚C. Colony characteristics were noted and bacterial cells examined for their morphological characters. Routine biochemical tests i.e. catalase, urease, trehalose, maltotriose, etc. and synergistic haemolysis with Rhodococcus equi and antagonistic haemolysis with Staphylococcus aureus (Cowan and Steel, 1974) were carried out to identify the isolates. Both the goats were treated with intramuscular injections of ampicillin twice a day for one week along with supportive care (injection DNS 400 ml and injection Novalgin 1 ml, once a day for 3 days; injection Livadex fort 2 ml and half a bolus of Yeasac, once daily for 5 days). After incubation of pus samples for 48 h at 37˚C, small, white, dry and crumbly bacterial colonies appeared on the plates. Microscopic examination revealed the presence of G +ve and small curved rodshaped cells. On the basis of morpho-cultural properties and biochemical tests (Holt et al., 1994; Quinn et al., 2002), the isolated organism was identified as Corynebacterium pseudotuberculosis.