Yesterday I did a necropsy on a 16-year old albino corn snake. In vet school, our lectures on snakes and reptiles and amphibians were cursory at best, and covered nothing at all on the anatomy of these animals. When I got the email that the snake was coming in, I hustled over to the bookcase and grabbed the first relevant textbook that I saw. It took me about an hour to read and take notes on the chapter on snake anatomy. There was a decent figure in there, so I photocopied it to take down to the necropsy floor. I skimmed other chapters to get an idea of what kinds of diseases were most common in snakes. I also specifically researched zoonoses. I already knew about Salmonella (any reptile can give you salmonellosis), but I also learned that snakes commonly have cryptosporidia in their gut and those little parasites don't care who or what you are, they will make you so fucking sick with the vomiting and shitting that you will wish you had salmonella instead. Right--everyone on the floor was going to wear full PPE (personal protective equipment) including face masks.
And of course, I also immediately sent up the bat signal to one of my classmates who keeps snakes as pets. He was super helpful, giving me tips on how to determine a body condition score for snakes (that's an important thing in vet med, we do it for all species but you look at different parts of the animal depending on the species, and we never talked about determining a BCS for reptiles during school). He also kindly shared other miscellaneous bits of knowledge that one can only acquire by actually keeping snakes around all the time. Not my cup of tea, snakes, but this is my job now.
Snakes appear to have gone out of their way to make their anatomy as weird and difficult as possible (no diaphragm, one lung, three-chambered heart, two aorta, no urinary bladder, tongue hidden away in a pouch in the mouth; I could go on). Thankfully, livers and kidneys are fairly recognizable organs in most species and serve as good landmarks. I did my best, and to be honest, I found some surprises in this snake that may actually provide a cause of death. That's a rare enough outcome for any necropsy in any species, but even better because this one was so unusual.
And today I did a necropsy on a bobcat. The bobcat came in last week but we had to submit brain tissue for rabies testing before we could proceed with the necropsy. It was negative.
So when I was in vet school, still in second or third year, a cougar came into necropsy. Everyone was super excited and it was the talk of school...until that darned thing tested positive for Yersinia pestis, otherwise known as The Plague. Yeah, THAT plague! That's a reportable disease and Homeland Security got involved because bioterrorism. All students in necropsy at the time had to take a course of antibiotics (no opt-out on that), and a mountain of paperwork was created. The pathologist in charge of the case still tells stories about it.
The director of the lab told me during my first week here that tularemia was pretty common in Arkansas. Tularemia? That is a horrible disease! It affects rabbits, but also quite often affects felids. Felids...like bobcats.
So I spent this morning researching gross lesions that I might expect to see for Francisella tularemia, Yersinia pestis, and what the hell, Bacillus anthracis too (anthrax). Going for the full apocalypse. All three are zoonotic (nasty deaths for humans) and reportable. I made notes on the tissues I needed to collect, what tests I needed to request, and where I might send all this shit because we don't test for any of those diseases at our own lab.
I emailed one of my mentors at Oregon State (had some questions about the snake) and told her I had read up on these three diseases before doing the bobcat necropsy. She replied, "I'm so proud that you are considering the absolute worse case scenario before going on the floor!" Snark? Humor? True compliment? All of the above! I'm nothing if not cynically thorough.
So the bobcat had a femur fracture and likely died of starvation/dehydration. No evidence of infectious disease. Even so, I was ready.
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