Comparison of 3 agar media in Fung double tubes and Petri plates to detect and enumerate Clostridium spp. in broiler chicken intestines.

Clostridium perfringens is an anaerobic, spore-forming bacterium that may lead to necrotic enteritis, resulting in poor feed efficiency and increased mortality in chickens. It is estimated that C. perfringens infects almost 1 million people in the United States every year. The objective of this research was to compare the Fung double tube (FDT) and conventional Petri plates using 3 different media to detect and enumerate Clostridium spp. in chicken intestines. Nine Cobb 500 broilers were randomly selected and euthanized at 21 and 42 d of age for a total of 18 samples. The jejunum and ileum from each broiler were harvested and studied in 2 methods and 3 media combinations, utilizing a 2 × 3 factorial totaling 6 treatments. The 2 methods were FDT and conventional Petri plates, and the 3 media were Shahidi-Ferguson Perfringens (SFP) with egg yolk supplement, polymyxin B, and kanamycin (E); SFP with polymyxin B and kanamycin (P); and SFP with d-cycloserine (C). Enumerations were performed after 24 h of incubation at 37°C. At 21 d, counts using medium C with FDT (4.51 log10 cfu/g) and plates (2.38 log10 cfu/g) were higher (P < 0.05) than using media E or P. On d 42, there were no differences among plate treatments and medium E had the highest counts (0.98 log10 cfu/g). Of all the FDT, medium C (5.35 log10 cfu/g) had the highest counts (P < 0.05), followed by medium P (3.54 log10 cfu/g). This study illustrates that the FDT method is able to enumerate Clostridium spp. at higher levels (P < 0.001) than the conventional Petri plate method; therefore, the FDT should be implemented and further explored.

Psychological problems of the physically handicapped patient.

There is increasing concern about the difficulty encountered by handicapped patients in obtaining adequate dental health care. In addition to the problems of availability and accessibility of dental care there are social and psychological problems affecting the acceptability of dental health care. To overcome these difficulties the dentist must understand the bases of his own perceptions as well as those of his patients which interact in the dentist-patient treatment situation. Although many of the physical problems can be solved by such measures as wheel chair ramps, the major difficulty is the social acceptability of the handicapped. The same degree of handicap may cause different problems depending on the way in which the individual adjusts to it. Orofacial defects cause particular difficulties because they cannot be hidden in the same way as, for example, a missing or deformed limb. Often the relatively minor defects encountered in dental practice may cause greater problems than a more major deformity, since the near normal person strives harder to be considered as normal. Studies of babies' responses to normal and abnormal facial appearances have demonstrated the tremendous importance of the facial area in communication. Smiling responses were common with a normal face whereas grotesque faces induced anxiety in children. In later life facial abnormalities tend to evoke both aesthetic and sexual aversion so interfering with the process of social interaction. The dentist must become more aware of the psychological state of physically handicapped patients and of his own reaction to them.