Abstract
MOST stocks of laboratory rats are subject to the chronic murine pneumonia described by Nelson and Gowen1. Such rats are also prone to a form of peri-arteritis2 and to nephrosis3. All these are diseases of maturity in the rat; they increase in frequency with age and may, in some cases, affect most old members of a colony. The pneumonia is known to be much less prevalent in wild rats1. The aetiology of these diseases is not clear, though in the case of pneumonia Nelson4 offered evidence that the condition was viral and initiated the development of “specific-pathogen-free” (SPF) animals for colonies free from pneumonia. SPF animals live longer than “dirty” rats. Paget and Lemon5, describing such a colony, reported 19 per cent of SPF animals with lungs classified as other than “healthy normal”, 12 per cent with severe renal disease and 9 per cent with polyarteritis, as against 96 per cent, 19 per cent and 16 per cent respectively in “dirty” animals.
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References
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TUCKER, A., WYATT, J. Possible Dietary Factors in the Aetiology of Chronic Murine Pneumonia, Nephrosis and Peri-arteritis. Nature 215, 976–978 (1967). https://doi.org/10.1038/215976a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/215976a0
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