MALLEIN 363 



microscopical and staining methods is so great that these 

 cannot be employed with any certainty. Loffler and 

 Straus therefore recommend the inoculation of a male 

 guinea-pig intraperitoneally with the discharge or other 

 material. If the glanders bacillus is present the lesions 

 thus described rapidly ensue, and the diagnosis is estab- 

 lised in four or five days (Straus's test 1 ). At the present 

 time the inoculation method has been almost entirely 

 superseded by the introduction of mallein, the former 

 being reserved for clinical diagnosis in man. 



McFadyean found that the blood of a glandered animal 

 produces agglutination or clumping of the glanders 

 bacillus similar to that obtained in the agglutination 

 (Widal) test for typhoid, and has suggested this reaction 

 as a means of diagnosis. As an aid to the clinical diag- 

 nosis of the disease in man it is doubtful if agglutination 

 can be applied, for Foulerton found that sera of typhoid 

 fever and diphtheria also produce agglutination of the 

 glanders bacillus. 



Toxins. Mallein, a preparation analogous to tuber- 

 culin, is prepared by growing a virulent glanders bacillus 

 for a month or six weeks in glycerin veal-broth in flat flasks 

 such as are employed for tuberculin (Fig. 41, p. 372), 

 so that there is free access of oxygen. The culture is then 

 autoclaved for fifteen minutes at 115 C., filtered through a 

 Berkefeld filter, concentrated to one-fourth of its volume, 

 and mixed with an equal volume of a \ per cent, solution 

 of carbolic acid. This yields an active mallein, 1 c.c. of 

 which is a dose, and gives a good reaction. Like tuber- 

 culin, it possesses feeble curative properties, though a few 

 cases of cure by prolonged use have been reported by 

 Babes and others, but is used for diagnostic purposes, and 

 is one of the most certain means we possess for diagnosing 

 glanders in the horse. Injected into an unglandered horse 



1 See also Nicolle, Ann. de VInst Pasteur, xx, 1906. 



