52 REPORT OF THE BUREAU OP AISTIMAL INDUSTRY. 



A very good soil for the multiplication of these bacilli is the cut 

 surface of "boiled potatoes. Loffler and Schiitz describe the very 

 characteristic appearance substantially as follows: Already on the 

 second day the surface of the potato is covered with a delicate yel- 

 lowish, translucent layer, which becomes amber-colored later on. 

 After six or eight days a reddish color appears ; the transparency is 

 lost and the color suggests the red of cuprous oxide. The. potato 

 surface bordering the growth assumes a pale greenish appearance. 

 This description applies very closely to the potato cultures made 

 in the laboratory of the Bureau. A very striking appearance is 

 produced when bits of tissue are used to inoculate the potato, since the 

 bacilli not being very numerous, the colonies appear isolated instead 

 of being fused into a uniform layer. They are exceedingly small at 

 the beginning of the third day, scarcely recognizable. Towards the 

 end of the third -day, the cultures being kept at 37 C., the colonies 

 are visible as minute hemispherical masses of a delicate translucent, 

 pale-yellow tint. In fact the cut surface of the potato appears as if 

 sprinkled with a pale-yellow serum. Gradually the color changes as 

 above described and the colonies fuse into an opaque layer. 



The probability of a multiplication outside of the animal organism 

 of glanders bacilli is very slight. Experiments have shown that they 

 do not develop when the temperature is less than 25 C. (77 F.), and 

 then only on certain substances, such as botled potato, blood serum, 

 agar-agar with peptone. When infusions of hay, straw, dats, wheat, 

 and manure, such as form in and around stables, were inoculated 

 with glanders bacilli no multiplication took place even at the most 

 favorable temperature. Owing to the high temperature necessary 

 for this multiplication gelatine can not be employed as a culture 

 medium. 



It has already been stated that glanders bacilli have no movement of 

 their own. This I can confirm from numerous observations. Only 

 the slight dancing movement observed among all bacteria suspended 

 in liquids could be detected. There seems to be a difference of opinion, 

 however, on this important point. In Eisenberg's Bacteriolpgische 

 Diagnostic they are characterized as actively motile, and this state- 

 ment is repeated in a second edition recently issued. If this differ- 

 ence of opinion depends on a difference in interpretation of the same 

 object, it is high time that bacteriologists define clearly what is 

 meant by motility. 



My own observations differ from those of Loffler and Schiitz in 

 regard to its growth in liquids. They state that in neutralized bouil- 

 lon prepared from muscular tissue of man, horse, sheep, rabbit, beef, 

 and fowl, with or without 1 per cent, peptone, it multiplies very 

 well. At the end of the second or third day the liquid becomes 

 clouded, and finally a viscid, whitish deposit forms. Our obser- 

 vations extend only to cultures in slightly alkaline beef infusion 

 peptone. These have never shown a perceptible clouding. The 

 liquid remains limpid, and one might say after a short inspection of 

 the tubes that there was no growth. When vigorously shaken up, 

 however, a yellowish- white deposit is seen rising from the bottom as 

 a twisted column when the culture is one or more weeks old. This 

 very viscid mass consists of glanders bacilli. It is probable that by 

 varying the reaction of the liquid slightly, or the meat employed, a 

 fluid medium may be obtained in which the bacilli of glanders as 

 found in our country may grow like those studied in Berlin. At all 

 events, so far as my experience goes, I should feel very suspicious of 



