[Intrauterine inoculation, an experimental model in colibacillary infection in mice]

Impuber females of the RAP, Swiss, Albino-Rosso, NRMI and C57Bl mice strains were inoculated by intrauterine route with E. coli O55B5, following up the mortality rate, dissemination and persistence of the bacilli in different organs, the onest of possible lesions in the urinary and genital tract, the reproduction capacity and frequency of coli diarrhea in the progeny. The C57Bl, NRMI and H strains were more sensitive, and the RAP, Swiss and Albino-Rosso more resistent to the lethal effect of the intraperitoneal inoculations. Intrauterine inoculation revealed no significant difference in the susceptibility of the animal strains, the mortality rate being virtually nil even when doses much higher than those inoculated by i.p. route were used, except for C57Bl mice in which lethal cases were recorded also after intrauterine inoculation. E. coli was isolated from the liver and sporadically from the kidneys and urinary bladder up to 14 ways after i.p. inoculation. After intrauterine inoculation E. coli was isolated from the uterus up to 30 days, and sporadically from the kidneys and urinary bladder, but not from the liver. In this case, too, the C57Bl mice were the exception, E. coli benig found in the liver after both i.p. and intrauterine inoculation. The latter inoculation did not influence the reproduction capacity of the females or the appearance of epizootic diarrhea in the progeny.