256 Manual of Veterinary Microbiology. 



present in the blood only in acute forms, and then in 

 very small numbers. 



Action of 'physical and chemical agents. — The con- 

 tagion of glanders is destroyed by two minutes ex- 

 posure to a temperature of 100°, but its destruction 

 can be obtained at lower temperature, provided the 

 action of the heat is more prolonged, for example, 

 five minutes at 65°, ten minutes at 55°. Glanderous 

 pus, spread in a thin layer and left to desiccate in 

 contact with the air, loses its activity between the 

 second and third days; hot and dry weather fa- 

 vors its destruction, while cold and wet weather 

 retards it. Under the same conditions of desic- 

 cation, but excluded from the air, it yet shows 

 itself active after twenty-six days. Virus rapidly 

 and thoroughly dried retains its vitality in contact 

 with the air longer than that which is slowly and im- 

 perfectly dried. The discharge from the nose in gland- 

 ers, when immersed in water, has been found to re- 

 tain its virulence for eighteen days. Virulence is not 

 readily destroyed by putrefaction; inoculations made 

 with the central part of pieces of glanderous lungs 

 abandoned to the air for fifteen, eighteen, and even 

 twenty-six days, have given positive results. (Cadeac 

 and Malet.) 



The following substances destroy the virus of 

 glanders after one hour of contact : carbolic acid, 2 

 per cent; sulphuric acid, 2 per cent ; chloride of zinc, 

 2 per cent; saturated lime water; hypochlorite of 

 lime, 1 per cent; corrosive sublimate, 1 to 1,000, 

 and 1 to 10,000 ; sulfate of copper, 5 per cent ; per- 

 manganate of potash, 5 per cent; nitrate of silver, 1 



