Yersinia Enterocolitica

Abstract

YERSINIA ENTEROCOLITICA is rapidly emerging worldwide as an enteric pathogen associated with a wide spectrum of clinical and immunologic manifestations. The clinical illness caused by this pathogen ranges from self-limited enterocolitis to potentially fatal systemic infection; post-infection manifestations include erythema nodosum and reactive arthritis. The organism was first described by Schleifstein and Coleman in 1939 as "an unidentified microorganism resembling Bacterium lignieri and Pasteurella pseudotuberculosis, and pathogenic for man."¹ Isolates were variously named Bacterium enterocoliticum, P. X, P. pseudotuberculosis type b, Germe X, and P. pseudotuberculosis X, until 1964, when Frederiksen proposed the name Yersinia enterocolitica.² In . . .