Diagnosis 415 



animal eventually dies of exhaustion. No nasal ulcers 

 form in guinea-pigs. 



In field-mice the disease is much more rapid, no local 

 lesions being visible. For two or three days the animal 

 seems unwell, its breathing is hurried, it sits with closed 

 eyes in a corner of the cage, and finally, without any other 

 preliminaries, tumbles over on its side, dead. 



From the tissues of the inoculated animals pure cultures 

 are easily made. Perhaps the best places from which to 

 secure a culture are the softened nodes which have not 

 ruptured, or the joints. 



Diagnosis of Glanders. Straus* has given -us a method 

 which is of great use both for isolating pure cultures of the 

 glanders bacillus, and for making a diagnosis of the disease. 

 But a short time is required. The material suspected to 

 contain the glanders bacillus is injected into the peritoneal 

 cavity of a male guinea-pig. In three or four days the 

 disease becomes established and the testicles enlarge; the 

 skin over them becomes red and shining; the testicles 

 themselves begin to suppurate, and often evacuate through 

 the skin. The animal dies in about two weeks. If, how- 

 ever, it be killed and its testicles examined, the tunica 

 vaginalis testis will be found to contain pus, and 

 sometimes to be partially obliterated by inflammatory 

 exudation. The bacilli are present in this pus, and can be 

 secured from it in pure cultures. 



The value of Straus's method has been somewhat lessened 

 by the discovery by Kutcher, f that a new bacillus, which 

 he has classed among the pseudo-tubercle bacilli, produces 

 a similar testicular swelling when injected into the abdominal 

 cavity; also by Levy and Steinmetz, J who found that 

 Staphylococcus pyogenes aureus was also capable of pro- 

 voking suppurative orchitis. However, the diagnosis is 

 certain if a culture of the glanders bacillus be secured 

 from the pus in the scrotum. 



As the purulent discharges from the noses of horses and 

 other large animals commonly contain very few bacilli, 

 their detection by the use of the guinea-pig inoculation is 

 made much simplified. 



For the diagnosis of the disease in living animals, sub- 

 cutaneous injections of mallein (q. v.) are also employed. 



* " Compt. rendu Acad. d. Sciences," Paris, cvnr, 530. 



f "Zeitschrift fur Hygiene," Bd. xxi, Heft i, Dec. 6, 1895. 



t "Berliner klin. Wochenschrift," March 18, 1895, No. n. 



