242 



GLANDERS. 



cutaneous tissue and muscles, and the mucous membrane 

 may become affected. The disease often runs a very 

 chronic course, lasting for months, and recovery may occur, 

 though, on the other hand, the disease may take on a more 

 acute character and rapidly lead to a fatal result. 



The Glanders Bacillus Microscopical Characters. 

 The glanders bacilli are minute rods, straight or slightly 



curved, with rounded 

 ends, and about the 

 same length as tubercle 

 bacilli, but distinctly 

 thicker (Fig. 62). 

 They show, however, 

 considerable varia- 

 tions in size and in 

 appearance, and their 

 protoplasm is often 

 broken up into a 

 number of deeply- 

 stained portions with 

 unstained intervals 

 between. Sometimes 

 the unstained parts 

 are oval or rounded in 

 shape, and resemble 

 spores. These characters are seen both in the tissues and 

 in cultures, but, as in the case of many organisms, irregu- 

 larities in form and size are more pronounced in cultures 

 (Fig. 63). Occasionally short filamentous forms 8 to 12 /x 

 in length are met with, but these are on the whole rare, 

 most being in the form of single short rods. They are 

 non-motile. 



In the tissues they usually occur irregularly scattered 

 amongst the cellular elements ; a few may be contained 

 within leucocytes and connective tissue corpuscles, but the 

 position of most is extracellular. They are most abundant 

 in the acute lesions, in which they may be found in con- 

 siderable numbers ; but in the chronic nodules, especially 



FIG. 62. Glanders bacilli amongst broken- 

 down cells. Film preparation from a glanders 

 nodule in a guinea-pig. 



Stained with weak carbol-fuchsin. x 1000. 



