Abscess, cerebral
Click picture to enlarge. Close window to return

This is a saggital section of the head of an 11 month-old, female pig. Viewing this lesion in a pig allows a unique view, because the saggital plane cannot usually be used with human material, for cosmetic reasons. The process is the same in both species, however. The animal developed an infection elsewhere in its body, with the result that the organism, Corynebacterium pyogenes, seeded distant sites through the circulation. One of the locales that was colonized was the brain, where a cerebral abscess was formed. It is the elliptical, yellow-gray structure that is present at the left-center of the photograph. The consistency of the pus in the abscess is thick, i.e., not fluid and creamy, as you might have expected. This is a normal variant that can be expected. The name of the causal organism, C. pyogenes, conveys to us that it is likely to be pyogenic, i.e., capable of inducing the formation of pus.