316 GLANDERS BACILLUS 



bouillon is quite abundant. On agar small, whitish, opaque colonies 

 round or wavy in outline, are formed. These, after a few days, 

 become confluent and cover the medium with a delicate, moist, easily 

 detachable growth. On potatoes a scanty, dirty grayish, dry, dusty 

 growth occurs. The best medium is coagulated blood serum on which 

 small, round, distinctly margined colonies, elevated at the centre, are 

 formed. These colonies later form racemose processes. On horse's 

 serum the color is whitish, on cattle serum more yellowish, sometimes 

 as intense in color as colonies of the Staphylococcus pyogenes aureus. 

 The organism is strictly aerobic. It does not change the reaction of 

 the medium and does not grow well in milk, which it does not coagulate. 

 Cultures remain virulent for three or four months. The bacteria are 

 killed in less than fifteen minutes at 65 C. and in one hour at 58 C. 

 Nocard was able to produce the typical disease in two horses by the 

 subcutaneous inoculation of two drops of a culture. Guinea-pigs 

 inoculated subcutaneously develops large abscesses in four to five 

 days; these heal slowly with scar formation while new abscesses 

 develop in the neighborhood. 



A small amount of pure culture or pus from a horse inoculated 

 into the peritoneal cavity of a male guinea-pig produces an orchitis 

 similar to that produced by the inoculation of glanders bacilli. 

 Between the third and the fifth day the scrotum becomes inflamed, 

 edematous, hot, tender, and painful. Death occurs after six to eight 

 days. Sometimes the orchitis is relatively moderate, and death does 

 not occur. The testicles may become entirely destroyed by the 

 necrotic, suppurative process. Rabbits survive after intraperitoneal 

 injection; subcutaneous injections produce an erysipeloid reaction. 

 These animals die in a cachectic condition after intravenous injection. 

 Mice and pigeons are susceptible, chickens are not. 



Another bacterium found in the nasal discharges of horses, which 

 when inoculated intraperitoneally into male guinea-pigs produces 

 an orchitis and kills the animals in four to five days, is a bacillus 

 discovered by Kutscher. This organism is also fatal to mice when 

 inoculated subcutaneously. These bacilli, morphologically, are very 

 much like the Bacillus mallei, but they are Gram positive, while the 

 glanders bacillus is Gram negative. The bacillus of Kutscher also 

 differs from the Bacillus mallei in that it liquefies gelatin. On blood 

 serum it forms a deep orange pigment and on potatoes a thin, gray, 

 dry growth. 



Pseudofarcy due to a microorganism of the saccharomyces or 

 blastomyces type is discussed in a later chapter. 



