Might be useful. Pretty much any pet species with teeth (or sometimes
beaks) and some wild ones have in the past been implicated in injuries
which simply didn't fit what they can do.

Could also be useful in some rescue situations to separate causes of
injury if a copy can be obtained.

J Forensic Leg Med. 2008 Apr;15(3):193-7. Epub 2007 Sep 5.
Injuries inflicted by a pet ferret on a child: morphological aspects
and comparison with other mammalian pet bite marks.
Ferrant O, Papin F, Dupont C Jr, Clin B, Babin E.
Caen University Hospital, Unite de Medecine Legale, Hopital Cote de
Nacre, 14033 Caen cedex, France.

Ferrets are becoming more and more popular pets in American homes.
Nevertheless, they can cause potentially dangerous injuries,
particularly in small children. Based on the case of an infant injured
by a ferret, the characteristics of the wounds are described and
compared with those of other animals. The potential legal implications
are also discussed.

PMID: 18313018 [PubMed - in process]

We had a ferret who was too active after surgery, had injured himself
but not critically, was in bad pain, and was startled by a loud noise
while i was comforting and checking him. Obviously, there were very
extenuating circumstances. (He also had been through a rough time as a
kit but this was years later so long after his rescue.) Anyway, he was
fine till the loud noise, and then I got to learn just how wonderful
noses are at healing. The canines EACH left tears in a cross shape

      |       |
   __ |___ __ |___
      |       |
      |       |
          A

      |       |
   __ |___ __ |___
      |       |
      |       |

Then his incisors fit into the horizontal rays in the center of each
of those crosses that the canines had left and scraped out the skin
between, in the location that I labelled "A". I yelped. He immediately
looked startled and began to try to kiss me. The would itself was not
large: about 1/4 of an inch long and wide, and the tissue removed was
not in the least deep, and it soon healed wonderfully with no remaining
evidence (except when i get a pimple under the little bit of scar
tissue that remains) but I have since learned that noses often do heal
well.

There will be those here who will remember situations in which cages
or claws caused problems but teeth were blamed, and even ones where
the animal probably had nothing to do with the injury. So, this article
may help.

Somewhat related: as with dogs, ferrets with canine distemper can
appear like they may have rabies. Notice that the result of testing the
one ferret was distemper so when rabies is suspected it still might not
be present:

Kansenshogaku Zasshi. 2004 Mar;78(3):274-6.Links
[Rabies post-exposure prophylaxis after being bitten by a ferret
suspected to have rabies, case report]
[Article in Japanese]

Takayama N.
Department of Pediatrics, Tokyo Metropolitan Komagome Hospital.

A woman bought two ferrets from a pet shop. These ferrets became brutal
soon, excreted a large amount of saliva and then died. One of these
ferrets had bitten the owner's hand before it died. As for the ferret,
rabies and distemper were suspected. To receive rabies post- exposure
prophylaxis the woman visited our vaccine clinic. To clarify the
ferret's cause of death virological examinations were requested to
Tokyo Metropolitan Institute of Public Health. The rabies examination
of the ferret that had bitten the owner was performed according the
law. However the tests of the other ferret that had not bitten the
owner was not done though it was suspected to die from rabies, because
the law does not mention such a case like the latter ferret. The
virological tests concerning distemper were not accepted by the
Institute, so the examination was done at a private laboratory. These
two ferrets were diagnosed to have had distemper from the results. It
is clearly shown from this bite-accident that the legal system where
the cause of the animal's death required is extremely incomplete in
Japan.

PMID: 15103911 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

Sukie (not a vet)

Recommended ferret health links:
http://pets.groups.yahoo.com/group/ferrethealth/
http://ferrethealth.org/archive/
http://www.afip.org/ferrets/index.html
http://www.miamiferret.org/fhc/
http://www.ferretcongress.org/
http://www.trifl.org/index.shtml
http://homepage.mac.com/sukie/sukiesferretlinks.html

[Posted in FML 5902]