[Endocarditis and meat inspection in slaughtering pigs. 1. Clinical, pathological and microbiological aspects]

The clinical, pathomorphological and microbiological findings during meat inspection in 599 pigs with endocarditis at slaughter were studied. Clinical signs were observed in 41 per cent of the pigs on ante-mortem inspection. Lameness was the most common sign. However, this symptom is not very specific of endocarditis. This is also true of various other symptoms. Only dyspnoea and drowsiness were indicative of endocarditis to some extent, but occurred only sporadically. Extracardial lesions were observed in 66 per cent of the pigs with endocarditis on post-mortem inspection. Metastatic processes (infarction or inflammatory foci) were most frequently detected in the kidneys. These were highly specific of endocarditis. In addition, the following changes were observed in decreasing incidence: signs of sepsis (hyperplastic splenitis, petechiae and degradation of organs), inflammatory lesions of the joints and legs, metastatic pneumonia and inflammation of the tail. Bacteriological examination was positive in 62 per cent of the cases. Streptococci were the organisms most frequently isolated (36 per cent), followed by Corynebacterium pyogenes (19 per cent) and Erysipelothrix rhusiopathiae (14 per cent). The discussion is concerned with the significance of these bacteria to meat-consumers.