[Diarrhea in young calves. 4. Redox potential of the gastrointestinal tract of clinically healthy calves, and calves with spontaneous diarrhea, experimental Escherichia coli infection, and cyclophosphamide treatment].

The redox potential (ROP) dropped strongly in a calf, from two hours after birth to 48 hours of age. The drop in the colon was more strongly pronounced than that in the small intestine. -The Eh values recorded throughout the small intestine of clinically intact calves, aged between four and ten days, were more negative than those in the stomach. The most negative ROP values, which differed with significance from those of all proximal gastro-intestinal sections, were recorded from the caecum. -Intracolonic negativation of ROP in calves, during the first hours of life, must be attributed to progressing germ population. The same relationship is borne out clearly by a pronounced rise in anaerobic germ count accompanied by significant ROP negativation in the colon. -Growing age was accompanied by drastic change in ROP values throughout the gastro-intestinal tract. Calves aged between six and nine weeks were compared to animals aged between four and ten days. ROP values in stomach, proximal and distal jejunum as well as in the ileum of the former group were negative with significance, whereas ROP values in the caecum and colon of the same group were more positive. -Animals with diarrhoea exhibited significant ROP deviations only in the ileum. They were more negative, as compared to clinically intact calves aged between four and ten days. Pathophysiological intestinal disorders which could be measured via ROP were found to play no role at all in the genesis and course of diarrhoea of calf. -No pronounced gastro-intestinal ROP deviations were exhibited by calves with experimentally induced Escherichia coli infection and manifest coli dysentery nor by animals which received cyclophosphamide treatment.