At 10:09 AM 1/19/00 -0500, Chris Keil wrote:
>> Well, it certainly causes diarrhea in humans, I can vouch for that. I've
>> recently had 2 courses of the stuff for a tooth infection:-). Luckily it
>> didn't kill me. But as the gut flora of rodents, especially grass-eating
>> ones, plays a much more crucial part in their digestion, this would make
>> perfect sense.
>>
>> Sue
>
>Mostly it's because you're big enough to take the hit, actually. The dose
>to kill something of your size is considerably larger, but still possible
>(as your example shows) to kill a human. The "theraputic index" (the amount
>which will do some good but not kill) is much tighter in smaller animals.
>There is problably a theoretical amount of Amox which could help a gerb, but
>actually giving them that small a dose may be an impossibility. (Actually,
>by way of anecdote, it could kill you too. I had a stomach infection a
>couple years back which killed all the other bacteria in my system. I got
>so sick I had to be hospitalized for two days for re-hydration. Bacteria
>aplenty in our own systems.)
Close, but no cigar. =) Sue is talking about different gut flora than what
we humans have. It's all to do with having a functional cecum and
microorganisms in it that will digest cellulose & stuff that humans (& dogs
& cats) can't digest. We used to have them living in our appendix, but no
more (evolution at work.) These microorganisms are why you don't fast
rodents (& lagomorphs) before surgery: their intestinal flora can die out
completely, and they'll starve to death, even if you start feeding them
again. Well, also their digestive system can "stall out" and it's hard to
get it started up again. Certain antibiotics can kill off their gut flora,
too, & they'll die because they can no longer digest food.
Similarly, human women often get yeast infections after a course of
antibiotics, because the organisms that normally keep the yeast population
in check were killed by the systemic antibiotics. It takes awhile for them
to build back up after the antibiotics have been discontinued.
Also, there may be things comparable to um, thiobromine? something that
starts with a t, that's in chocolate that in large quantities causes dogs
to have seizures, but I don't know anything about those in rodents. I think
they're pretty similar to us neurologically.
Rebecca...
