THE GLANDERS BACILLUS. 



271 



on the other hand, the disease may take on a more acute 

 character and rapidly become fatal. 



The Glanders Bacillus Microscopical Characters. The 

 glanders bacilli are minute rods, straight or slightly curved, 

 with rounded ends, 

 and about the same 

 length as tubercle 

 bacilli, but distinctly 

 thicker (Fig. 72). 

 They show, however, 

 considerable varia- 

 tions in size and in 

 appearance, and their 

 protoplasm is often 

 broken up into a 

 number of deeply- 

 stained portions with 

 unstained intervals 

 between. These 

 characters are seen 

 both in the tissues 

 and in cultures, but, 

 as in the case of many organisms, irregularities in form 

 and size are more pronounced in cultures (Fig. 73), short 

 filamentous forms 8 to 12 /A in length being sometimes 

 met with, but these are on the whole rare. The organism 

 is non-motile. 



In the tissues they usually occur irregularly scattered 

 amongst the cellular elements ; a few may be contained 

 within leucocytes and connective tissue corpuscles, but the 

 position of most is extracellular. They are most abundant 

 in the acute lesions, in which they may be found in con- 

 siderable numbers ; but in the chronic nodules, especially 

 when softening has taken place, they are few in number, 

 and it may be impossible to find any in sections. They 

 have less powers of persistence, and disappear in the tissues 

 much more quickly than tubercle bacilli. 



There has been dispute as to whether or not they 



FlG. 72. Glanders bacilli amongst broken- 

 down cells. Film preparation from a glanders 

 nodule in a guinea-pig. 



Stained with weak carbol-fuchsin. x 1000. 



