BACILLI IN CHRONIC INFECTIOUS DISEASES. 



417 



56. BACILLUS MALLEI. 



Synonyms. The bacillus of glanders; Der Rotzbacillus, Ger.; 

 Bacille de la morve, Fr. 



Discovered by Loffler and Schutz (1882), and proved to be the 

 cause of glanders by the successful inoculation of pure cultures. 

 Found especially in the recent nodules in animals infected with 

 glanders ; also in the same after ulceration, and in the discharge 

 from the nostrils, pus from the specific ulcers, etc. ; sometimes in the 

 blood of infected animals (Weichselbaum). 



Morphology. Bacilli with rounded ends, straight or slightly 

 curved, rather shorter and decidedly thicker than the tubercle bacil- 

 lus ; usually solitary, but occasionally united in 

 pairs, or in filaments containing several elements 

 (in potato cultures). In stained preparations 

 unstained or feebly stained spaces are seen in 

 the rods, alternating with the deeply stained 

 protoplasm of the cell. As in the tubercle bacil- 

 lus, which presents a similar appearance, these 

 spaces have been supposed by some bacteriolo- 

 gists to represent spores ; but Loffler believes 

 them to represent rather a degeneration of the 

 protoplasm. Baumgarten and Rosenthal claim 

 to have demonstrated the presence of spores by the use of Neisser's 

 method of staining, but they do not consider it established that the 

 unstained spaces in the rods referred to are of this nature. 



The glanders bacillus may be stained with aqueous solutions of 

 the aniline colors, but the staining is more intense when the solution 



FIG. 123. Bacillus mal- 

 lei, x 1,000. From a pho- 

 tomicrograph. CFriinkel 

 and Pfeiffer.) 



Fia. 124. Section of a glanders nodule. X 700. (Flugge.) 



is made feebly alkaline. Add to three cubic centimetres of a 1 : 10,000 

 solution of caustic potash, in a watch glass, one cubic centimetre of 

 a saturated alcoholic solution of an aniline color (methylene blue, 



