Monthly Archives: January 2012

Dogs at greater risk from Lyme disease: Bristol research (From Vetsonline)

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Ticks infected with the bacteria that cause Lyme disease may be considerably more prevalent in the UK than recent estimates indicated, according to new research from the University of Bristol.

Researchers at the university used pet dogs as sentinels for human disease risk.

Transmitted by ticks, Lyme disease is a debilitating chronic infection that affects a number of animals, including humans and dogs. It is caused by the bacterium Borrelia burgdorferi. Clinical signs in humans include a characteristic circular red rash that spreads from the site of the tick bite, followed by a ‘flu-like condition.

In dogs, the symptoms can be much more vague and difficult to diagnose. If untreated, the disease progresses to neurological problems and arthritis; chronic forms of the disease can last for many years.

While only occasionally affecting humans, reported cases in the UK are thought to have increased more than four-fold since the beginning of the century – from 0.38 per 100,000 in 2000 to 1.79 per 100,000 in 2009.

In 2010, there were 953 reported cases in England and Wales, but the level of under-reporting is likely to be considerable.

To obtain a clearer picture of the prevalence of infected ticks, Faith Smith, of the University of Bristol’s School of Biological Sciences, and colleagues recruited vets from across England, Scotland and Wales to examine dogs selected at random as they visited veterinary practices.

Since pet dogs are largely said to share the same environment and visit the same outdoor areas as their owners, exposure to infected ticks in dogs is likely to provide an index for corresponding risks to humans, researchers believe.

Of 3,534 dogs inspected between March and October 2009, 14.9 per cent had ticks. Of the samples that could be tested, 17 were positive for the Borrelia bacteria. Hence, 2.3 per cent of ticks were infected.

The expected prevalence of infected ticks on dogs is 0.5 per cent, or 481 infected ticks per 100,000 dogs. This, say researchers, suggests that the prevalence of Borrelia in the UK tick population is considerably higher than previously thought.

Faith Smith said: “Lyme disease appears to be a rapidly growing problem in the UK, with important health and economic impacts in terms of loss of working hours and potential decrease in tourism to tick hotspots.

“Without considerably better surveillance and routine diagnostic testing, Lyme disease is only likely to become more prevalent. In particular, future warmer winters might well extend the period over which ticks are active seasonally, while growing wild reservoir host populations, such as deer, will allow the tick population to expand.”

The study is published today (January 25) in the journal Comparative Immunology, Microbiology and Infectious Diseases. The research was funded by the Natural Environment Research Council and Merial Animal Health.

The paper is called “Estimating Lyme disease risk using pet dogs as sentinels” by Faith D Smith, Rachel Ballantyne, Eric R. Morgan, and Richard Wall and is in Comparative Immunology, Microbiology and Infectious Diseases.

The figures on reported cases of Lyme disease in the UK came from the Health Protection Agency.

The amazing four-century history of Yorkshire Vets

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A 1904 letter to clients informing them of the transfer of ownership of the practice.

This account has been pieced together over the years by our recently retired senior partner and now chief guru Mike Clark MRCVS -but even he wasn’t here at the beginning!

‘Yorkshire Vets is a modern, expanding veterinary practice but it is also one of the country’s oldest practices. We trace our roots back in two lines of continuous succession to the very beginnings of the veterinary profession.

William Harrison was born in 1647, probably in the Bowling area of Bradford. His great-grandson, Joshua, born 1748, was a tenant farmer on the Bowling estate. Younger sons of tenant farmers could not succeed to the tenancy and had to seek other employment : his son William, born 1781, became a blacksmith.

At this time the treatment of disease, and especially lameness, in livestock was entirely in the hands of blacksmiths, farriers, and quacks. The first veterinary school in England was not established until 1791.

William’s sons John (b.1819) and Benjamin (b.1827) both became blacksmiths and farriers. There was then a distinction between shoeing-smiths, who simply shod horses and mended farm implements, and farriers who would undertake corrective work including foot trimming and making special shoes, as well as providing other medication.

The 1881 Veterinary Surgeons Act provided that no-one could take the title of veterinary surgeon without having been instructed at a veterinary college and passing the examination of the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons. An exception was made for those who had for five years previously been working as veterinary surgeons : they were admitted to the Existing Practitioners List. Benjamin Harrison became an Existing Practitioner.

John and Benjamin appear to have worked from separate premises around Bowling Back Lane as farriers, but in partnership as veterinary surgeons – although John seems never to have applied to be registered as an Existing Practitioner! When Benjamin died in 1885, his elder brother John continued to practise in the firm of ‘J and B Harrison, Veterinary Surgeons’ until his death in 1890.

An invoice from 1890 for treatment of a cow 'taken with cold'

Benjamin had a daughter, Martha, who married a qualified veterinary surgeon, Harry Newsome. Harry had attended the New Veterinary College in Edinburgh which was set up by William Williams (a former Bradford veterinary surgeon) in opposition to William Dick’s school. Harry continued his father-in-law’s practice. During this time he employed a veterinary student, Arthur Huggan Watson. Arthur was from Pudsey, studying at the Royal Veterinary College, London. He qualified in 1902, and he bought the practice on Harry Newsome’s sudden and untimely death in 1904.

On the outbreak of the Great War, Arthur volunteered to serve with the Royal Army Veterinary Corps in France and Egypt. Naturally the practice dwindled in his absence, but on his return it quickly grew and he was in time joined in partnership first by Arthur Adams and then by Douglas Smith. Arthur Watson died in 1953.

The partnership continued to grow. In 1971 the practice (by now Adams, Smith and Morgan) merged with the practice of Archie Gracie in Thornton to create the foundations of the practice we have today.

Archie Gracie’s practice had an equally fascinating history stretching back to 1847. In that year Joseph Shepherd Carter, a farmer’s son from Coley and a former pupil of Hipperholme Grammar School, qualified from the Royal Veterinary College, London. He set up his practice in the centre of Bradford. Joseph and his brother John Henry both became veterinary surgeons, but John practised elsewhere.

Joseph had three sons who became veterinary surgeons. George William qualified in 1875 and practised in Keighley. Joseph Henry qualified in 1882 and practised in Burnley. Frederick Percy Carter qualified in 1883 from the New Edinburgh school and joined his father as a partner in the Bradford practice (then at the bottom of Little Horton Lane).

Joseph Shepherd Carter retired in June 1904, having practised until he was over 80. He died the following March. He and each of his sons were awarded Fellowship of the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons for their outstanding contributions to the profession. Quite a family !

Frederick Carter took as a partner Frank Boyle Greer. Greer qualified from London in 1907 and came to Bradford from Newcastle upon Tyne. On Frederick’s death in 1920 he succeeded to the practice, and subsequently moved it to 14 Ashfield, Great Horton Road (roughly where the main entrance to Bradford University now stands). Greer died in 1944, having sold the practice to Brian Walker. Walker divided the practice into separate small animal and large animal practices. The small animal practice was bought by Paul Bottomley (qualified 1947) and remained in Ashfield until the University required the site : it is now Shearbridge Veterinary Hospital. The large animal practice moved to Thornton and was acquired by Mr Gracie, merging with Adams, Smith and Morgan in 1971.

So there you have it. Two very different strands of veterinary history. One presaging the origins of the profession itself through farriery, the other going back to the country’s first few trained and qualified veterinary surgeons. Both predating the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons’ charter (1844) and the first Veterinary Surgeons Act (1881).’

MH Clark BVetMed BSc MRCVS
Jan 2012

UK farm vets urged to remain vigilant for signs of new virus (Via Vetsonline)

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Although not in our small animal remit, this is important enough to cross-post here as well:

UK farm vets urged to remain vigilant for signs of new virus

The BVA is urging farm vets and farmers to familiarise themselves with the clinical signs of the newly discovered Schmallenberg virus, particularly on farms where animals have been imported from affected countries.

BVA president Carl Padgett is calling for vigilance.The virus, of the genus Orthobunyavirus, was initially detected in cattle in Germany and, based on the geographic origin of the sample, was provisionally named Schmallenberg virus (SBV). Since the summer of 2011, clinical signs have also been reported on farms in the Netherlands.

Clinical signs include:

fever,
reduced milk yield (up to 50%),
inappetence,
loss of condition and, in some cases,
diarrhoea.

Clinical signs are generally mild and disappear after a few days but, where pregnant animals are infected, considerable congenital damages, premature births and reproductive disorders may occur.

Since DEFRA’s final report of 2011, Belgium has reported finding viruspositive lambs with congenital
deformities on 11 sheep farms in the North Western region of Antwerp, as well as deformities in a further eight cattle, three more sheep and on one goat farm.

With this in mind, and although no clinical signs or neonatal deformities have been reported in the UK, both DEFRA and the BVA are urging animal keepers to remain vigilant, particularly in areas where consignments of cattle that originated in the affected regions were moved to the UK during July – November 2011 (see map below).

Current countries affected by reports of Schmallenburg virus and recent consignments of live cattle (since July 2011).BVA president Carl Padgett said: “Farmers and vets should be extra vigilant where ruminants have been imported from the affected areas. The symptoms described in adults are quite generic but this disease seems to affect a few animals, not just one.”

He went on: “AHVLA is now looking for reports of signs in newborn ruminants and aborted foetuses of limb or brain defects such as arthrogryposis, jaw deformations and torticollis, and ataxia, paralysis and blindness. They are particularly interested if these offspring were born to animals where there is a history of importation from the Continue reading →