[Pathomorphological changes in colibacteriosis in pigs]

A total of 46 suckling piglets spontaneously affected with colibacteriosis and 20 pigs aged from 1 to 10 days, experimentally infected with two strains of Escherichia coli (0149 and 0138) were investigated morphologically. Both in the animals with spontaneous infection and in those with experimentally induced disease there were severe morphologic lesions not only in the small intestines, but also in the other viscera and the brain. Catarrhal to hemorrhagic enteritis was observed in 56.5 per cent of the spontaneous cases and 57.1 per cent of the test animals. Parenchymal dystrophy with hemorrhages were seen in the liver in 89.1 per cent of the pigs of the first group and 57.1 per cent of those of the experimental group. Kidney lesions were noted in 65.2 per cent and 28.6 per cent, respectively. Spontaneously affected piglets showed bacterial thrombi in the lumen of some small blood vessels, and in the adrenals (23.9 per cent) and the thymus (13.00 per cent). In the brain there was meningoencephalitis in 54.3 per cent of the spontaneously affected animals and in 85.9 per cent of the experimentally infected ones. In the test animals infected with serotype 0149 there were more serious morphologic changes than in those infected with serotype 0138. It was demonstrated that occasionally pathogenic E. coli organisms had a broader spectrum of action in the body of host sucklings. So colibacteriosis is considered a severe generalised disease which runs its course in sucking pigs as septicaemia and toxaemia.