"54 TREEPOTSI? OF THE BUREAU OF ANIMAL INDUSTRY. 



bowel discharges of Asiatic cholera? This might unquestionably 

 be done, but it would be a very tedious method, requiring much 

 minor apparatus and still more patience, and in the end the result 

 might be negative. The reasons for this are various. Glanders 

 bacilli do not grow in gelatine at the temperature at which plate 

 cultures can be used. Agar plates might be used, but germs grow 

 upon agar very much alike, and as glanders bacilli are, as a rule, very 

 Scarce in discharges, the labor of examining microscopically a large 

 number of colonies to find the right one would become very great. 

 Finally, they grow very slowly, and would be in danger of being 

 overrun by the colonies of putrefactive germs which grow very rapidly 

 in the thermostat. 



Cade^c and Roy (Journal de Medecine Veterinaire, May, 1888) made 

 cultures on potato directly from the nasal discharges of various ani- 

 mals, and claimed from the similarity of the color of the growth from 

 these different sources to cultures of glanders bacilli that this method 

 of diagnosis is of no value. The authors have entirely mistaken the 

 method. Neither Lomer nor any other subsequent German observers 

 have maintained that cultures made on potato from the nasal dis- 

 charges or any other product in contact with the air have any value 

 whatever. The fundamental principles of bacteriology are directly 

 opposed to the indiscriminate cultivation of a number of germs on 

 the same substratum, and especially the potato. Only those disease 

 products which have not yet been exposed to the air, 'or which are 

 buried in the depths of vital organs, can be used for cultivation. 



The method which is now in use more or less, and which was per- 

 fected by Loffler and Schiitz, consists in inoculating small animals, 

 more especially guinea pigs, with the disease products. These in turn 

 develop the disease, the nature of which may then be determined by 

 the lesions of the inoculated animals, both internal and external, or 

 more positively demonstrated by cultures from the various organs. 

 In this method the animal body becomes, so to speak, the culture 

 flask, and a very perfect one, too, for it not only permits the disease 

 germs to multiply in the various organs, but it also speedily destroys 

 all other germs inoculated at the same time, leaving the glanders 

 bacilli in entire possession of the field. 



The inoculation of species of animals other than the horse and ass, 

 which ^ are naturally susceptible to this disease, has been tried by 

 many investigators. These experiments need not be recounted here, 

 as they are not pertinent to the subject under discussion. They have 

 shown that cattle are insusceptible; that goats and sheep may 

 take the disease after inoculation, the former even spontaneously. 

 Lions and tigers in menageries have contracted glanders by feeding 

 upon the raw flesh of gland ered horses. Cats contract the disease 

 in the same way and are susceptible to inoculation. Dogs are less 

 susceptible than cats, both when fed and inoculated. Coming to those 

 smaller animals which might serve a useful purpose in making a 

 diagnosis, we also find great variety in the relative susceptibility. 

 Among those which have been tried are rabbits, guinea pigs, white 

 mice, white rats, field mice (Arvicola arvalis and Arvicola terrestris), 

 pigeons, fowls, and several other rodents. Of these the white mice, 

 white rats, and fowls were found practically insusceptible ; the rab- 

 bits varied in this respect ; some contracted the disease after inocula- 

 tion, others did not. Guinea pigs and field mice proved to be uni- 

 formly susceptible when inoculated, both with material directly from 

 the animal and with bacilli from cultures. 



