Enteric <i>Escherichia coli</i> Infections. Morphological Findings in the Intestinal Mucosa of Healthy and Diseased Piglets

Abstract

The villi of the small intestine of healthy conventional pigs were finger-shaped or leaf-shaped. In animals with an acute diarrhoeal form of Escherichia coli infection there was a change in the ratio of villous length to crypt depth but not in the villous shape. In animals with the diarrhoeal E. coli infection of longer duration a remoulding of the villi to a ridge shape occurred at about 20 days of age, but the surface of the mucosa was never flat. At this age the average ratio of villous length to crypt depth for the duodenum, jejunum, and ileum, respectively, was 4.0, 5.0 and 4.1 in healthy piglets and 0.5, 0.6 and 0.8 in animals with the diarrhoeal form of E. coli infection.