558 BOAED OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



examination alone is made. One such case is here reported. Only 

 one other instance of this disease was received, and this the usual 

 and easily diagnosticated tumor of the jaw (lump jaw). 



Glanders. 



The work in this direction has consisted in making a positive or 

 negative diagnosis in suspected cases, according to the method of 

 Strauss (the interabdominal inoculation of male guinea-pigs with 

 suspected discharges) . At first the material for inoculation was 

 collected personally, but it was found more expedient for the 

 inspector who visited such cases to obtain the suspected discharge, 

 and bring it, as soon as possible, to the laboratory. It was, 

 therefore, arranged that such inspector should carry with him the 

 following : a test tube properly plugged with absorbent cotton, 

 containing a swab of absorbent cotton wrapped about the end of 

 a stout wire ; the whole thoroughly sterilized before being placed 

 in the inspector's hands. As much as possible of the suspicious 

 discharge (nasal or from a farcy-bud) is collected upon this swab, 

 at once returned to the test tube and brought to the laboratory. 

 Here sterilized water is added, the cotton swab freed from the 

 wire and left in the water. This is then violently shaken, until 

 all large particles of the discharge are dissolved, the cottoa 

 squeezed as dry as possible with sterile forceps, and the solution 

 thus obtained used for inoculation, two guinea-pigs being inva- 

 riably employed. Unfortunately, the guinea-pig is not as sus- 

 ceptible an animal as one could desire for such work, but is the 

 only accessible one, and if virulent glanders bacilli are present in 

 sufficient number, the typical lesions of the testicle appear in from 

 two to five days after inoculation. In only one instance of a pos- 

 itive inoculation were these lesions absent, and in this case cult- 

 ures of the glanders bacillus were obtained from the spleen 

 sixteen days after inoculation, when the animal was killed. A 

 second guinea-pig, however, inoculated at the same time, showed 

 the testicle lesions on the second day. 



A glance at the annexed table may intimate a preponderance of 

 negative results ; but it must be remembered that these inocula- 

 tions were undertaken for the purpose of diagnosis, and that 

 these horses were only doubtful cases of glanders. The more sus- 

 picious negative cases were tested twice, to be doubly sure of the 

 absence of glanders bacilli. One horse that gave a negative test 

 was subsequently killed, and glanders nodules found in the lungs 

 at autopsy ; no lesions were found upon its nasal septum, how- 

 ever, and only a clear, watery discharge from the nose had been 



