CHAPTER XXIX. 



GLANDERS. 

 BACILLUS MALLEI (LOFFLER AND SCHUTZ).* 



General Characteristics. A non-motile, non-flagellate, non-spor- 

 ogenous, non-liquefying, non-chromogenic, non-aerogenic, aerobic and 

 optionally anaerobic, acid-forming and milk coagulating bacillus, patho- 

 genic for man and the lower animals, staining by ordinary methods, 

 but not by Gram's method. 



Glanders is an infectious mycotic disease which, for- 

 tunately, is almost entirely confined to the lower animals. 

 Only occasionally does it secure a victim among hostlers, 

 drovers, soldiers, and others whose vocations bring them in 

 contact with diseased horses. Several bacteriologists have 

 succumbed to accidental laboratory infection. 



Glanders was first known to us as a disease of the horse 

 and ass, characterized by the formation of discrete, cleanly 

 cut ulcers upon the mucous membrane of the nose. The 

 ulcers in the nose of the horse and ass are formed by the 

 breaking down of inflammatory nodules which can be detected 

 in all stages upon the diseased membranes. The ulcers, 

 having once formed, show no tendency to recover, but 

 slowly spread and persistently discharge a virulent pus. 

 The edges of the ulcers are indurated and elevated, their 

 surfaces often smooth. The disease does not progress to 

 any great extent before the submaxillary lymphatic glands 

 begin to enlarge, soften, open, and become discharging 

 ulcers. The lungs may also become infected by inspiration 

 of the infectious material from the nose and throat, and 

 contain small foci of bronchopneumonia not unlike tubercles 

 in their early appearance. The animals ultimately die of 

 exhaustion. 



Specific Organism. In 1882, shortly after the dis- 

 covery of the tubercle bacillus, Loffler and Schiitz discovered 

 in the discharges and tissues of the disease the specific 

 micro-organism, the glanders bacillus (Bacillus mallei). 



*" Deutsche med. Wochenschrift," 1882, 52. 

 775 



