CHAPTER III. 



DISEASES CAUSED BY BACTERIA— GENUS BACTERIUM. 



SWINE PLAGUE OR INFECTIOUS PNEUMONI.\ IN SWINE. * 



43. Characterization. Swine plague is an infectious 

 disease of swine occurring sporadically and in epizootics. It 

 appears usualh- as a septicaemia or a pneumonia in which there 

 is marked consolidation of the ventral and cephalic lobes and 

 the cephalic portion of the principal lobe of one or both lungs. 

 There may or may not be pleuritis. There may be marked 

 changes in the intestine, consisting of superficial necrosis of the 

 mucosa especially in the ileum and caecum. On this account it 

 has been considered an infectious pneumoenteritis. It is iden- 

 tical with the disease known in Germany as Sehiveineseuche. 



§ 44. History. In 1886, Smith found in a pig in the 

 state of Illinois a disease which differed from hog cholera 

 and from the lesions he isolated a bacterium which dif- 

 fered from that of hog cholera. Later other cases of this 

 disease were found in considerable numbers not onl}- in the 

 state of Illinois but in various places in the eastern part of the 

 United States. Prior to this Loeffler, in Germany, had de- 

 scribed an organism which he had found to be the cause of an 

 infectious pneumonia in swine {Sehiveineseuche) and with which 

 Smith was able to identify the organism he had discovered. 

 The first publication on this disease in the United States is in 

 the Anntial Report of the Bureau of Animal Industry for 18S6. 



Smith described swine plague as an independent disease, 

 although it is often associated with hog cholera in the same 



*For an explanation of the confusion existing concerning the 

 nomenclature of swine plague and hog cholera see hog cholera. 



Digitized by Microsoft® 



