Salmonella and Arizona Cultures from Agricultural Sources: 1959

URING 1959, 2,350 cultures of Salmonella isolated from agricultural sources in the United States were typed serologically at the Communicable Disease Center, Chamblee, Georgia. This was an increase of 619 over the previous year.1 The cultures are summarized in Table 1. In addition, there were 95 cultures belonging to the Arizona group, making a total of 2,445 cultures in these two closely related groups of organisms. Of the 2,350 salmonellae identified, 1,729 (73.6%) were from animals. As might be expected, by far the largest proportion of the strains from animals were of avian origin (70.5%); turkeys accounted for 33.5% and chickens for 33.8%. In previous years, cultures from turkeys have far outnumbered those from chickens;1.2 in 1958, 57% of the Salmonella cultures serotyped were from turkeys and 29% were from chickens.1 Over one-quarter of the cultures from animals came from cattle (8.9%), swine (8.6%), and horses (8.7%) in contrast with previous years, when only 7.5% of the animal strains were from all domestic farm animals combined. A rather large number (140) of strains from pork and pork sausage were received from one investigator; this was 5.9% of the total salmonellae received. There was an increase in the proportion of cultures from animal feeds and feed ingredients-from 11% of the total in the previous year' to 20%. This reflects the current concern about contaminated