This Article Full Text (PDF) Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Services Similar articles in this journal Alert me to new issues of the journal Download to citation manager Reprints and Permissions Copyright Information Books from ASM Press MicrobeWorld Citing Articles Citing Articles via Google Scholar Google Scholar Articles by Hamdy, M. K. Articles by Brown, W. E. Search for Related Content PubMed Articles by Hamdy, M. K. Articles by Brown, W. E. Agricola Articles by Hamdy, M. K. Articles by Brown, W. E.

 Previous Article  |  Next Article 

Appl Environ Microbiol. 1964 November; 12(6): 464-469
Copyright © 1964 American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.

Source and Portal of Entry of Bacteria Found in Bruised Poultry Tissue¹

Food Technology Department, University of Georgia, Athens, Georgia

ABSTRACT

Bacteriological studies revealed that normal tissue, air sacs, feathers, skin of birds, poultry feed, gut, and chicken droppings were sources of the predominant organisms, including staphylococci, found in bruised poultry tissue. Further investigation of normal tissue revealed that after the intramuscular injection of Staphylococcus aureus, marker strain (MS), the organism was eliminated from these tissues within 7 days. However, when these tissues were traumatized 3 days after injection, the number of the test organism increased, and the organism was present on the 7th day after inoculation. Poultry feed and fecal material contained a large number of staphylococci identical to those isolated from bruised tissue (McCarthy, Brown, and Hamdy, 1963), thereby implicating the gut as a possible portal of entry. When a pathogenic marker strain of S. aureus was established in the intestinal tract of chickens by administering an active culture of this organism either in their drinking water or by gavage, it was recovered from the traumatized tissue. The incidence of positive culture of S. aureus MS in these tissues correlated with age of bruise, reaching 22 to 33% immediately after contusion and at the early stages of healing (1 to 3 days post bruise) and decreasing thereafter from 11 to 0% on the 4th through 6th days after bruise infliction. The air sac was also found to be a site by which bacteria may enter the traumatized tissues, but to a limited extent.

¹ Approved as Journal Paper No. 356, College Experiment Station, College of Agriculture, University of Georgia, Athens. Presented in part at the Annual Meeting of the American Society for Microbiology, Cleveland, Ohio, May, 1963.