Explore the recorded discovery and history of Yersinia enterocolitica, with source links and stated limits.
Y. enterocolitica causes yersiniosis. CDC describes fever, abdominal pain and diarrhea that can be bloody in young children, while older children and adults more often have fever and right-sided abdominal pain that can be confused with appendicitis. Infection is commonly linked to raw or undercooked pork, including contact with someone who has prepared chitlins. The organism tolerates cold: PHAC records survival for 448 days in water between minus 4 and 8 degrees Celsius, and it is motile at room temperature but non-motile at 37 degrees Celsius. Only certain serogroups cause human disease.
LPSN records Bacterium enterocoliticum Schleifstein and Coleman 1939 as the basonym for this species, before the genus Yersinia was applied to it.
LPSN records the current name as Frederiksen 1964, from a study of Yersinia pseudotuberculosis-like bacteria presented to the Scandinavian Congress of Pathology and Microbiology, on the Approved Lists of 1980, with type strain ATCC 9610 / NCTC 12982. Two subspecies are recognized: enterocolitica and palearctica.
These references do not establish the first person ever infected. Discovery, naming and isolation milestones do not date biological origin or a patient zero.
Source check: 2026-09-19. Educational content; independent scientific review remains pending.