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Also known as: Bacillary Typhilitis
Tyzzer's disease is caused by the obligatory intracellular Clostridium (formerly Bacillus) piliformis, a gram-variable organism diagnosed on post-mortem examination by histopathology utilising Giemsa or Warthin-Starry staining techniques (Walden 1990). The organism may be seen on impression smears of the ileum lining (see Okerman 1994). The organism does not grow on broth or agar. Predisposing causes in rabbits are not known (Carman 1994) but weanlings are most frequently affected.
Symptoms include acute depression, watery diarrhoea and a high mortality rate) or chronic weight loss. Post-mortem findings include dehydration, oedema of the intestinal wall, necrosis of the colonic and caecal mucosa, and occasionally many necrotic foci in the liver.
Treatment is not generally recommended but may be attempted (tetracyclines). The disease has also been reported under circumstances which suggested that it may be spread by wild mice (MAFF monthly report 080892).
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Tyzzer's disease/Clostridium piliforme in rabbits