4 BULLETIN 166, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



RELIABILITY OF THE TEST. 



The available data on the ophthalmic mallein test are sufficient to 

 draw conclusions as to the reliability of the method, and in Austria 

 alone it has been applied on many thousands of cases with uniformly 

 good results. 



In considering the good results obtained and the advantages of 

 this method of testing, a concentrated mallein has been prepared for 

 this purpose by the Bureau of Animal Industry, and this was made 

 available to a number of practicing veterinarians who desired to give 

 this method of testing a thorough trial. It has also been employed 

 by inspectors of the Bureau of Animal Industry in their field work, 

 and reports are accessible regarding its action for diagnostic pur- 

 poses on more than 18,000 cases. The results from all sources were 

 uniformly satisfactory. Practicing veterinarians who have given 

 this method a trial have reported very favorably on the results, and 

 the tests conducted by the bureau inspectors on several thousand 

 animals were also satisfactory. The method has been applied here 

 in Washington whenever possible, and recently in some immunizing 

 tests of glanders conducted by the Bureau of Animal Industry there 

 was a good opportunity to repeatedly employ this test. In all these 

 instances the results were uniformly good. In cases of glanders there 

 appeared a marked purulent conjunctivitis, and the reaction at times 

 was so severe that the animal could not open its tested eye. 



BEST RESULTS WITH RAW MALLEIN. 



The essential factor in obtaining satisfactory results from the test 

 appears to be in the use of the right kind of mallein. It must be by 

 all means a concentrated mallein, and apparently the best results 

 follow the use of raw mallein, which, as a rule, represents the mallein 

 obtained after the concentration of the filtrate from the bouillon cul- 

 tures of the glanders bacilli. The ordinary mallein used for subcu- 

 taneous testing is not adaptable, and the failures which have been 

 reported in the literature were without doubt, in the majority of 

 cases, due to the fact that the mallein employed was not sufficiently 

 concentrated. Marioth 1 correctly asserts that the reaction does not 

 depend as much on the quality and quantity of the mallein as on its 

 concentration. Our experiments in preserving such mallein with the 

 ordinary quantity of 0.5 per cent carbolic acid showed that it does 

 not interfere with the results of the test, although the lacrimation 

 which follows immediately after the introduction of such mallein is 

 more profuse than when carbolic acid has not been added, but this 

 disappears within one or two hours after the application of the test. 



» Monatsh. f. prakt. Uerheilk., bd. 24, bft. 7/8, p. 340-373; bit. 9/10, p. 426-456. Stuttgart, 1913. 



