CULTIVATION OF GLANDERS BACILLUS. 245 



On potato the glanders bacillus flourishes well and 

 produces a characteristic appearance, incubation at a high 

 temperature, however, being necessary. If inoculation is 

 made to potato from another medium, growth proceeds 

 rapidly, and on the third day has usually formed a trans- 

 parent layer of slightly yellowish tint, like clear honey in 

 appearance. On subsequent days, the growth still extends 

 and becomes darker in colour and more opaque, till about 

 the eighth day it has a reddish-brown or chocolate colour, 

 while the potato at the margin of the growth often shows 

 a greenish-yellow staining. The characters of the growth on 

 potato along with the microscopical appearances are quite 

 sufficient to distinguish the glanders bacillus from every 

 other known organism (sometimes the cholera organism 

 and the B. pyocyaneus produce a somewhat similar 

 appearance, but they can be readily distinguished by their 

 other characters). The potato is also a suitable medium 

 for starting cultures from the tissues, in this case minute 

 transparent colonies being visible on the third day and 

 afterwards presenting the appearances just described. 



Powers of Resistance. The glanders bacillus is not 

 killed at once by drying, but usually loses its vitality after 

 fourteen days in the dry condition, though sometimes it 

 lives longer. It is not quickly destroyed by putrefaction, 

 as glanders bacilli have been found to be still active after 

 remaining two or three weeks in putrefying fluids. In 

 cultures the bacilli retain their vitality for three or four 

 months, if, after growth has taken place, they be kept at the 

 temperature of the room ; on the other hand, they are often 

 found to be dead at the end of a month when kept con- 

 stantly at the body temperature. They have comparatively 

 feeble resistance to heat and antiseptics. Loftier found 

 that they were killed in ten minutes in a fluid kept at 55 C, 

 and in two to three minutes by a 5 per cent solution of 

 carbolic acid. Boiling water and the ordinarily used anti- 

 septics are very rapid and efficient disinfectants. 



We may summarise the characters of the glanders 

 bacillus by saying that in its morphological characters it 



