From:
sukieferret
Date: 2002-06-26 11:10:00 UTC
Subject: Re: Bob C: Some Thoughts to Ponder
I have just had time to skim Bob;s post, but if there is a survivial rate difference
(which may be hard to tell given that the actual diagnoses didn't exist then
and because euthanasia is so common when now when an animal is
suffering badly so the numbers of those individuals who may have survived
with damage is unknown due to mercy shots) then there could be a number of
other factors at play.
One is the micro-environment, and I suspecft this is the big one. Ferrets then
would have had much more exposure to quite an assortment of disease
pathogens then we have today with better controlled meat preparation and
storage, milk pasteurization, cleaning compounds, water preparation, etc.
These exposures would not only have had the effect of killing off weaker
individuals in far greater numbers than now, but perhaps there was
something of an effect similar to a vacination. What I m sayign here is that
perhaps a disease that was more common then and is related could be
caught in a mild form and then provide the sort of protection that milk maids
who had been through cown pox had to small pox. I am rather sleep deprived
now, but isn't measles related? If so, that would be just one example of a
related disease that was very, very common but is rare now, and which might
have provided a vaccine-like result from exposure. If it 's not related the
argument could stil hold with other diseases that were common and related
but no longer arecommon and I do beleive that I recall that rabies and CD are
related to some common diseases of the past, and even in humns all of us
above a certain age can rattle off a lot of them: chicken pox, scarlet fever,
mumps, rubella, etc., as well as transient common diseases of the past like
polio, and some other epidemics. Perhaps close association with humans
provided a vacine-like exposure to what was a common and related human
disease in the past, just as association with catttle protected those milk maids
form a worse disease.
I know there were at least two other things that I thought of which might affect
the ferrets of then as opposed to now, but I am tired enought that I can't recall
them right now, so will throw this out there since I think it might have the most
bearing, and read your note further and reply furher as time permits, which is
s avery real consdieration right now.