Feeding sodium arsanilate for exciting diarrhea and identifying carriers of swine dysentery.

Sodium arsanilate was fed to nondiarrhetic swine, previously exposed to and treated for swine dysentery, for the purpose of inducing them into developing a swine dysentery diarrhea. From 40 to 100% of these swine in each pen had previously had a swine dysentery diarrhea. The isolate of Treponema hyodysenteriae in the diced colon which was used to expose the swine was resistant to sodium arsanilate. After an interim of no treatment for swine dysentery, sodium arsanilate was fed at a level of 220 parts per million for 21 days. Of the 14 pens containing swine fed sodium arsanilate, ten pens had one or more swine that developed a swine dysentery diarrhea while being fed sodium arsanilate. This was significantly (P less than 0.05) greater than the three pens that each had one pig that developed a swine dysentery diarrhea of 13 pens containing similar swine not fed sodium arsanilate during a comparable period. In the 14 pens containing swine fed sodium arsanilate, 14 swine were the first to develop a swine dysentery diarrhea since in four pens, two swine in each pen developed diarrhea within 24 hours of each other. This also was significantly (P less than 0.01) greater than the three swine in the ten pens not fed sodium arsanilate. From these results, it was theorized that sodium arsanilate excited the nondiarrhetic carrier into developing a swine dysentery diarrhea and that this phenomenon may have potential in identifying the carrier state.