The rise of the cat empire is underway:
The Toronto man looked in ill health generally, had vague abdominal pains and was wheezing when he showed up at the emergency department after falling at home.
Two weeks later — despite major surgery and intensive antibiotic treatment — he was dead, septic shock having shut down his vital organs. The cause was as surprising as his precipitous decline: a bite on the thumb from a pet cat.
Although the wound seemed superficial and quickly healed, the damage was done; the cat's teeth had injected the unidentified man with a nasty microbe which spread aggressively throughout his body, undetected until it was too late.
The microbial attacker involved:
Pasteurella multocida, bacteria common in pets’ mouths and most often spread by the bite of felines, with their sharp and penetrating teeth.
Oddly enough, animal bites account for some of the most common causes of emergency room visits, and while in the past, ER doctors have generally blown them off as trivial, it's increasingly become recognized that anyone who has been bitten should probably be given a preventative course of antibiotics. Cats are among the worst, but the saliva of any animal can carry the pathogen.
