Glanders 273 



left in this not longer than 5 seconds. The bacillus often appears 

 granular, and unequally stained in its different parts. It may be 

 difficult of discovery in old standing lesions of horses, but comes 

 out clearly in recent lesions of experimental cases in Guinea pigs 

 and donkeys. 



Baumgarten claims sporulation but this is uncertain. 



The bacillus has only limited power of resistance to destructive 

 physical and chemical agents. It is killed in 10 minutes at 55° C, 

 in 2 minutes at 100° C, orby mercuric chloride solution (1:5000), 

 or by phenol (5:100), or by permanganate of potass (1:100). In 

 warm dry air and sunshine it is sterilized, in thick layers in 2 

 months (Peuch), in moderate layers in 4 to 15 days (Galtier), 

 and in very thin layers in 3 days (Cadeac and Malet). In moist, 

 cool air and in the shade it is much more resistant. In stables it 

 may remain virulent for three or four months, and thus the dis- 

 ease has often reappeared among the newly introduced horses 

 after a stable has been abandoned for a length of time. The 

 microbe does not grow in infusions of hay, straw or horse manure, 

 and it is doubtful if it can maintain an active saprophytic exist- 

 ence. Its vitality and virulence, however, persists in putrefying 

 materials for 14 to 24 days, and in winter from 15 to .'o daj's. 

 Hence it is largely propagated through drinking troughs and oc- 

 casionally through ponds, lakes and sluggish streams. Again the 

 virus is likely to be preserved in and transmitted by rotten or even 

 sound woodwork, as of mangers, racks, buckets, shafts and poles, 

 and by harness, halters, blankets, combs, brushes and rubbers. 

 Sometimes direct transmission takes place in snorting or cough- 

 ing, or by the animals biting or licking each other. As the virus 

 is spattered on surrounding objects, the walls, stable utensils, 

 soiled fodder and feed, and even the attendant's clothes may be 

 the medium of transmission. Contagion during copulation is 

 not unknown, nor infection of the fcetus in utero from a diseased 

 mother. Carnivora (dog, cat, lion) fed on the diseased carcasses 

 have become infected. Experimentally infection has been con- 

 veyed by administering, by the mouth, balls containing the virus 

 (Renault, Coleman, etc.), and again by transfusing the blood 

 from a bad case of glanders into the. veins of a sound horse 

 (Viborg, Coleman, Renault, Hering, Chauveau, Nocard). Trans- 

 mission through the air on dust is counteracted by the speedy de- 

 struction of virulence on dust, and horses often stand side by side 

 18 



