344 A MANUAL OF BACTERIOLOGY 



(p. 350). The bacillus shows dark staining dots when 

 treated with osmic acid, suggesting fat- globules (Shattock). 



Cultural characters. The Bacillus mallei is an aerobic, 

 and facultatively anaerobic organism. The growth on 

 gelatin at 22 C. is scanty and pale brownish in colour 

 without liquefaction. On glycerin agar it forms a thick 

 cream- or slightly brown- coloured growth, and on blood- 

 serum a somewhat amber- coloured growth, which after- 

 wards becomes brownish. The growth on potato at 

 37 C. is most characteristic, and practically diagnostic. 

 If the surface of the potato is inoculated with a loopful 

 of farcy pus or material from the centre of a glanders 

 nodule, the resulting growth is usually not distinctly 

 visible until the third day, when raised, translucent, 

 viscid, amber- yellow coloured growth or colonies appear. 

 With continued incubation the colonies coalesce, the 

 growth becomes thicker and fawn-coloured, then reddish- 

 brown, and finally generally chocolate-brown. The 

 growth is also odourless, limited to the site of implanta- 

 tion, and does not stain the potato. Broth 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. 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, 



