708 Glanders 



decolorizes it carefully in hydrochloric acid (10 drops to 500 cc. of 

 water), immerses it at once in a solution of lithium carbonate (8 drops 

 of a saturated solution of lithium carbonate in 10 cc. of water), 

 places it in a bath of distilled water for a few minutes, dips it into 

 absolute alcohol colored with a little methylene-blue, dehydrates it 

 in anilin oil containing a little methylene-blue in solution, washes it 

 in pure anilin oil, not colored, then in a light ethereal oil, clears it in 

 xylol, and finally mounts it in balsam. 



Vital Resistance. The organism grows only between 25 and 42 C. 

 It is killed by exposure to 60 C. for two hours, or to 75C. for one 

 hour. Sunlight kills it after twenty-four hours' exposure. Thor- 

 ough drying destroys it in a short time. When planted upon cul- 

 ture-media, sealed, and kept cool and in the dark, it may be kept 

 alive for months and even years. Exposure to i per cent, carbolic 

 acid destroys it in about half an hour; i : 1000 bichlorid of 

 mercury solution, in about fifteen minutes. According to Hiss 

 and Zinsser, it may remain alive in the water of horse-troughs for 

 seventy days. 



Isolation. Attempts to isolate the glanders bacillus from infectious 

 discharges, by the usual plate method, are apt to fail, on account 

 of the presence of other more rapidly growing organisms. 



A better method seems to be by infecting an animal and recover- 

 ing the bacillus from its tissues. For this purpose the guinea-pig, 

 being a highly susceptible as well as a readily procurable animal, is 

 appropriate. When a subcutaneous inoculation of some of the 

 infectious pus is made, a tumefaction can be observed in guinea- 

 pigs in from four to five days. Somewhat later this tumefac- 

 tion changes to a caseous nodule, which ruptures and leaves a 

 chronic superficial ulcer with irregular margins. The lymph- 

 glands speedily become invaded, and in four or five weeks signs 

 of general infection appear. . The lymph-glands, especially of the 

 inguinal region, suppurate, and the testicles frequently undergo 

 the same process. Later the joints are affected with a suppura- 

 tive arthritis, the pus from which contains the bacilli. The 

 animal eventually dies of exhaustion. No nasal ulcers form in 

 guinea-pigs. 



In field-mice the disease is much more rapid, no local lesions 

 being visible. For two or three days the animal seems unwell, its 

 breathing is hurried, it sits with closed eyes in a corner of the cage, 

 and finally, without any other preliminaries, tumbles over dead. 



From the tissues of the inoculated animals pure cultures are easily 

 made. Perhaps the best places from which to secure a culture are 

 the softened nodes which have not ruptured, or the joints. 



Diagnosis of Glanders. Straus* has given us a method which 

 is of great use, both for isolating pure cultures of the glanders bacillus 

 and for making a diagnosis of the disease. 



* " Compt. rendu Acad. d. Sciences," Paris, cvm, 530. 



