CHAPTEE XIX. 



GLANDERS (Malleus Humidus}. 



ALTHOUGH glanders in man is a rare affection, it presents from 

 a bacteriological study so many points of interest that it merits 

 more than a passing notice. It is one of the infection^ diseases of 

 which the microbic cause is now thoroughly understood. 



HISTORY. That glanders in man occurs as an infection from 

 animals has been known for a long time. Its contagiousness among 

 horses was asserted by Solleysel in the seventeenth century. Rind- 

 fleisch believed that he saw vibriones in the granular contents of 

 glanderous abscesses. Klebs detected in cultures of pus taken from 

 animals suffering from this disease small rods and granules, but 

 further cultivations and inoculations in rabbits failed. The pres- 

 ence of minute organisms in cases of glanders was pointed out by 

 MM. Christatt and Kiener, in 1868, and their observations were 

 corroborated by MM. Bouchard, Capitan, and Charrin, who have 

 found the organisms not only in parts exposed to the air, such as 

 nasal ulcerations and pulmonary abscesses, but also in parts which 

 are not so exposed, such as the spleen, liver, and lymphatic glands. 



Chaveau (Comptes rendus, Ixvii., ISTo. 14) demonstrated by his 

 experiments that the virus of glanders was fixed to small solid 

 particles, as he found the sediment which formed after diluting pus 

 with water active. This discovery marked an advance in the 

 knowledge of the physical nature of the virus. Loffler and Schiitz 

 are the discoverers of the bacillus of glanders in horses. In 1882 

 they made a preliminary report of their researches (Deutsche med. 

 Wochenschrift, 1882, No. 52). In 1886 Loffler published his elab- 

 orate monograph on this subject (" Die Aetiologie der Rotzkrank- 

 heit," Arbeiten cms dem Kaiserlicken Gresundheitsamte zu Berlin, 

 B. i. S. 141-199). Soon after Loffler's first paper appeared, 

 Bouchard, Capitan, and Charrin published almost simultaneously 

 the results of their researches and observations ; but it appears from 

 Loffler's second paper that none of them had been able to produce 

 a pure culture. Kitt and Weichselbaum were the first who, by 

 their own labor, were able to corroborate the correctness of Loffler's 

 discovery ; the former by his observations and experiments on 

 animals, the latter by a case of glanders in the human subject that 

 came under his observation. 



