A method for reproducing fatal idiopathic colitis (colitis X) in ponies and isolation of a Clostridium as a possible agent

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Abstract
Severe colitis was induced in two ponies after oral pre‐treatment with clindamycin and lincomycin, followed by intestinal content from two horses which had died from naturally‐occuring idiopathic colitis. Two ponies treated with antibiotic alone, and two ponies treated with intestinal content alone, were unaffected. In a further study, three ponies treated on separate occasions with lincomycin, administered orally, died or were destroyed 67 to 72 h after initial treatment. No established salmonella, yersinia or Campylobacter pathogens were isolated from these ponies, but a Clostridium closely resembling Clostridium cadaveris was isolated as the predominant Clostridium from them all and from the colonic content of one of six horses which died from naturally‐occuring idiopathic colitis. It was not isolated from six horses with non‐fatal diarrhoea. This Clostridium is a candidate as an agent of some cases of fatal colitis in horses.