A disease of unknown etiology attacked an animal in 1965, 6 animals in 1967, and an animal in 1968 at the “Y” Breeding Swine Center in Niigata Prefecture. It was characterized by sudden death preceded by few clinical symptoms.
Autopsy on 3 cases of sudden death revealed nasal hemorrhage, jetting of stink from the transection of blood vessels and at the time of laparotomy, congestion and hemorrhage in the subcutaneous tissue and muscle of the neck, cardiac muscle, the gastric fundus, lymph nodes of the small intestine and other organs, hemorrhagic and edematous inflammation of the lung, and hemorrhage and partial phlegmonous changes by gas production of the liver. As a result, the disease was demonstrated to be enterotoxemia caused by infection with type-A organisms of Clostridium welchii.
