[Respiratory diseases in sheep due to Mycoplasma ovipneumoniae]

Mycoplasma ovipneumoniae was isolated from sheep and lambs affected with a respiratory disease. It was established that the pneumonic disease caused by this organism was a severe one, with high mortality rate in young lambs. Adult sheep and older lambs remained chronically affected. Susceptibility varied, depending on the breed of the animals, some imported animals running a more severe course of the disease than the local ones. The disease was artificially induced in lambs at the joint infection with M. ovipneumoniae and P. haemolytica. The morphologic changes in the lungs consisted in a prevailing proliferation of the septal cells and polynuclear cells in the alveoli, an interseptal histiocyte proliferation, and a serous leukocyte infiltration.