SWINE INFLUENZA : I. EXPERIMENTAL TRANSMISSION AND PATHOLOGY

Abstract

Swine influenza has been induced in pigs by the intranasal instillation of material from spontaneous cases of the disease as occurring epizootically in eastern Iowa. The experimental disease has the same features as the epizootic. It has been maintained for study by serial passages accomplished either by intranasal instillation or by pen contact. Eight strains of the virus have been established experimentally during three epizootic periods. The clinical disease induced by these eight strains has been in general the same although its severity and mortality have varied. The principal features of the pathology of swine influenza are an exudative bronchitis accompanied by marked damage of the bronchial epithelium and its cilia, a peribronchial round cell infiltration, and massive pulmonary atelectasis. The latter is modified somewhat by a round cell infiltration of the alveolar walls. The lymph nodes, especially the cervical and mediastinal ones, are hyperplastic and edematous. There is usually a mild to moderate, acute splenic tumor. The mucosa of the stomach and colon is congested. The pneumonia following swine influenza is, characteristically, lobular in type and of the same general distribution as the atelectasis. The non-pneumonic areas of lung are extremely edematous and congested.