[Clinico-epizootiological and pathomorphological studies of "marble spleen" disease in pheasants]

Described are the clinical and epizootiological aspects and the morphological lesions in pheasants affected with the marble spleen disease at its first outbreaks. The disease was found to run a peracute course with a 100 per cent lethal effect. Mortality rate reached 5.6 per cent, the male birds being affected much more rarely than the female ones -- up to 1.8 per cent. The spleen is invariably enlarged two to four times, with marble appearance due to the numerous gray-whitish nodules. Histologically, there were necroses with the abundant deposition of achromatic amyloid. The reticular cells presented large numbers of intranuclear inclusion bodies, mainly of two types -- large eosinophilic ones, filling the whole nucleus, and smaller ones of basophilic reaction, surrounded by a pale halo and located in the center of the nucleus. In the lungs there were strongly manifested oedema and hyperemia, and more rarely -- necrotic foci with the deposition of amyloid. The liver and kidneys presented degenerative lesions of a varying intensity, and there were also intranuclear bodies in the reticulo-endothelial cells. Amyloid was also found in the glomerules.