Paraquat poisoning in dogs and cats—differences between accidental and malicious poisoning

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.