Acute Atypical Bovine Pneumonia Caused by Ascaris Lumbricoides.

A case of acute atypical pneumonia (bovine asthma, pulmonary emphysema, or pulmonary adenomatosis) occurred in a group of cross-bred beef type yearlings in late autumn. Clinical signs included a forced expiratory grunt, excessive salivation, ruminal stasis and, on auscultation over the lungs, pulmonary emphysema and oedema. The cattle had been brought in from a poor summer pasture and housed in a pig pen heavily contaminated with Ascaris lumbricoides eggs as it had contained unwormed feeder pigs all summer. Fifteen out of seventeen head were affected ten days following housing and all within twenty-four hours. One steer of the group died and at necropsy fourth stage A. lumbricoides larvae were isolated from lungs showing profuse oedema and some emphysema. Histopathological examinations of the lungs showed a diffuse interstitial pneumonia. All remaining animals appeared clinically normal six days following the outbreak.