Is it true that a cat's tongue is clean?

dicknleah

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I have had cats my whole 37 years of existence but I still don't know everything about cats. I know from experience that when they bite they deposit bacteria and you become infected. That very thing happened to me a couple of months ago. I am debating this in another forum and need to know if the cat's tongue is indeed clean.
 

arlyn

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Cats and to a lesser extent dogs, both carry pasteurella bacteria in their saliva.
usually only means an infection for us, but to small prey animals, a non-fatal, skin breaking bite can still end up being fatal due to this.

Here an a paragraph from this site..
"The bacterial species most commonly found in bite wounds include Pasteurella multocida, Staphylococcus aureus, Pseudomonas sp, and Streptococcus sp. P. multocida, the root cause of pasteurellosis, is especially prominent in cat bite infections. Other infectious diseases from animal bites include cat-scratch disease, tetanus and rabies."
 

sooz123

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My husband contracted cat-scratch fever when in the air force and they all marveled over it... apparently not too common?
 
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