140 GLANDERS. 



is almost always present. The joints become swollen and 

 the testicles enormously distended ; the internal organs 

 lungs, kidney, spleen, and liver are the seats of the nodular 

 deposits, from which bacilli may be obtained in pure cultures. 



Diagnosis. The method of Strauss for the recognition of 

 the disease is of great importance clinically. With it in a 

 short time a diagnosis may be arrived at, while by the ordi- 

 nary methods of inoculation it would take weeks to come to 

 a certain conclusion. Its details are these : Into the perito- 

 neal cavity of a male guinea-pig a bit of the suspected 

 tissue is introduced. If the case be one of glanders, in about 

 thirty hours the testicles begin to swell and the skin covering 

 them becomes red and shining, and there is evidence of ab- 

 scess-formation. Tlie tumefaction of the testicle is a true 

 diagnostic sign. 



Mallein, the toxic principle secreted by the bacillus, has been 

 isolated from old glycerin-bouillon cultures of the Bacillus mallei. 

 For this purpose the cultures are steamed in a sterilizer for 

 several hours and then filtrated through a Chamberlain por- 

 celain filter and evaporated to one-tenth of their volume. 



This mallein is used as a diagnostic test for glanders in 

 animals, very much as tuberculin is for tuberculosis. It 

 produces when injected in very small quantity a rise of a 

 degree and a half C. if the animal be at all infected with the 

 disease, but in healthy animals injection is followed by no 

 febrile reaction. The precautions to be observed, the mode 

 of administration, dosage, and results are about the same as 

 with tuberculin. The aseptic precautions must be rigidly ob- 

 served. Free use of 5 per cent, carbolic solution as an anti- 

 septic is recommended. 



Some observers have asserted that the injection of this 

 mallein into susceptible animals will protect them from the 

 disease ; other observers assert that the blood-serum of nat- 

 urally immune animals is curative when injected into infected 

 animals. But these points are not fully determined. 



