The epidemiological, clinical, pathological and analytical findings in cases of accidental and malicious paraquat poisoning have been compared. These appear to indicate that in outbreaks which are probably malicious in origin, animals generally do not survive for long enough to develop specific pathological changes, but show appreciable tissue levels of paraquat on chemical analysis. In the sporadically occurring cases of accidental poisoning, tissue paraquat levels are low or undetectable and a presumptive diagnosis is more likely to be achieved on histopathological grounds.
A method for the detection of andromedotoxin in plant material and relicta from cases of poisoning due to Rhododendron and other members of the Ericacea is described. This method, which overcomes the problems associated with basing the diagnosis on the clinical signs exhibited and untrained identification of plant materials, has been successfully applied to the investigation of a number of field outbreaks of Rhododendron poisoning in animals.
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