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certain whether this is a new agent or a newly recognized agent which has caused disease for some time.”
Although a virus is the likely culprit, Dr. Palmer said, bacteria could play a secondary role in the disease. Dr. Jenny also suggested a type of rickettsia, the family of blood parasites that transmits Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever through ticks. (Maryland Assistant State Veterinarian Ralph C. Knowles later doubted it, but said researchers would not overlook the possibility.)
Dr. Sukanta Dutta, a virologist from the University of Maryland, said he has been able to isolate a virus (in 13 of 15 cases, according to Dr. Knowles), but has “not been able to determine what role it plays.”
Neither the Pennsylvania researchers nor their counterparts at the veterinary college in Blacksburg think Potomac Fever spreads by horse-to-horse contact.
Dr. Brian Perry from Blacksburg presented preliminary results of a survey the college conducted last summer of homeowners in Montgomery County, both those whose horses had the disease and a control sample of unaffected horses.
That survey suggested little differences in how the disease affects horse accord- - ing to sex, age (although 710 years showed the highest incidence) or use (although pleasure horses had it most), pasture, watering, bedding, etc.
It also suggested that AEDS is not contagious, because of 60 stricken animals 67 percent were the only case in the barn and contact with affected horses on pasture did not seem to affect chances of catching the disease.
But the survey suggested statistical risk on farms with other animals, like cattle and dogs, and in barns where the disease has struck before.
Of the cases surveyed, 61 percent were on farms with ' no other livestock, but that still presents a statistically pester risk, Dr. Perry said. But he added that he does not know what that risk factor really means.
In the other case, 42 percent of the cases surveyed occurred in barns where one or more cases had occurred in previous years, while (8 percent did not, again producing a statistical risk of the disease recurring.
Another unknown factor Dr. Palmer suggested is that an animal could carry the disease without becom
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