360 A MANUAL OF BACTERIOLOGY 



or glycerin broth becomes uniformly turbid, and after a 

 week or so patches of a whitish surface scum form, and 

 after three weeks the broth is nearly covered with this 

 surface growth, which is slimy and easily broken up on 

 shaking and, microscopically, shows thread and clubbed 

 forms. Broth cultures give the indole reaction. Litmus 

 glucose agar becomes pink. Milk is not coagulated. 



Resistance to Germicides, etc. The glanders bacillus is 

 but little resistant, and cultures frequently die out in a 

 month or so. Complete desiccation at 37 C. of nasal 

 discharge, farcy pus, or bacilli from cultures, is frequently 

 fatal in twenty -four to forty -eight hours. Young broth 

 cultures are soon destroyed by bright sunlight, and an 

 exposure of ten minutes to a temperature of 55 C. is fatal 

 to the cultivated bacilli. A 3 per cent, solution of carbolic 

 acid, a 1 per cent, solution of potassium permanganate, 

 and a 1 in 5,000 solution of corrosive sublimate are fatal 

 in two to five minutes. 



Paihogenicity , etc. The glanders bacillus varies con- 

 siderably in virulence, and under continued cultivation 

 may become almost non-pathogenic. 



Glanders is met with exclusively among horses, asses, 

 and mules, and man is infected from these animals, nearly 

 all cases of human glanders being among ostlers, grooms, 

 and coachmen, and the usual mode of infection is by 

 farcy pus or nasal discharge coming into contact with a 

 cutaneous wound or abrasion. A remarkable immunity, 

 however, is enjoyed by the slaughterers, who have to deal 

 with the carcases of glandered animals, and who might 

 be supposed to run the greatest risk. But it must be 

 remembered that Babes frequently found at the post- 

 mortem on persons who had to do with horses, and who 

 died from diseases other than glanders, encapsuled glan- 

 ders nodules in the lungs and internal organs, suggesting 

 that the disease may often be latent in man, who appears 



