438 SCIENCE PROGRESS. 



bably tuberculin and mallein may be included in the same 

 group. The latter is obtained from cultures of bacillus 

 mallei, the specific micro-organism of glanders, a disease 

 especially fatal to horses and easily communicable from 

 them to other animals by direct inoculation. The large 

 carnivora in menageries, lions, tigers and leopards, also 

 succumb after the ingestion of glandered horse flesh ( i ), 

 though it is still an open question whether a true infection 

 occurs at the surface of the uninjured intestine, since the 

 possibility of minute wounds of the mucous membrane 

 produced by splinters of swallowed bone cannot be excluded. 

 Babes and Cornil have, however, proved that cultures of 

 bacillus mallei incorporated with vaseline or lanoline can 

 be rubbed into the intact skin, conjunctiva or nasal mucous 

 membrane and so produce glanders, and the former 

 observer considers that infection may naturally occur by the 

 entrance of micro-organisms into the body by way of the 

 hair follicles. 



Like other infective diseases glanders in the horse, 

 man, or other animals may run an acute or chronic course, 

 and an animal suffering from this malady may exhibit 

 clinical si^ns which are insufficient to establish a definite 

 diagnosis. Since the disease is common among horses, 

 and apart from other considerations these are the animals 

 which chiefly furnish antitoxic serum for the treatment of 

 diphtheria and tetanus, it is a matter of the utmost im- 

 portance to definitely ascertain if possible whether an 

 individual is suffering from expressed or latent glanders. 

 Mallein has been extensively employed both in this coun- 

 try and abroad to answer this question before the animals 

 are subjected to the process for conferring immunity. 



Many years before the connection between specific 

 micro-organisms and infective diseases was clearly made 

 out, Youatt recommended that doubtful cases of glanders 

 should be diagnosed by reproducing the disease in the ass 

 by inoculation with the nasal discharge of a suspected 

 animal. The discovery of a specific microbe by Lofrler and 

 Schiitz and its characteristic growth on potato firmly es- 

 tablished the value of this method, and as an experimental 



