MALLEIN. 629 



intense that for three days it was feared that they would die- 

 In Nocard's second series of experiments, the first mallein test 

 subsequent to infection was made On the fifteenth day, and they 

 all reacted in the clearest manner. Repeated injections of mallein 

 with short intervals between them, render a still infected animal 

 liable to give no reaction. If we have reason to suppose that the 

 non-reaction has been due to this cause, we should make a second 

 test, not less than two months after the first one. In a glandered 

 horse, mallein appears to have the effect of causing the bacilli of 

 this disease to become isolated and enoapsuled in the tissues, 

 especially in the lungs. Although they may be thus rendered 

 inert for a time, they may escape later on from their surroimdings, 

 and may re-infect the animal. The longer the interval between 

 these two tests, when neither of them has given any reaction, 

 the greater is the probability that the horse is free from the 

 disease. Repeated injections of mallein decrease the extent of 

 the local reaction much more than they do that of the rise of 

 temperature. 



VALUE OF MALLEI-N AS' A MEANS FOE RECOGNISING 

 THE PRESENCE OF GLANDERS.— Extremely numerous and 

 most elaborate experiments have been made in England and on 

 the Continent, as to the value of mallein in this respect, with the 

 result that our veterinary surgeons are practically unanimous in 

 regarding it as an indispensable and highly reliable, though not 

 absolutely infallible, aid to the diagnosis of this disease. Its 

 employment, whiph is the only possible method of deciding the 

 case, when the suspected animal shows no outward signs of glanders, 

 is easy of accomplishment, expeditious, cheap, and entirely harm- 

 less to either healthy or diseased horses. For distinguishing 

 ulcerative lymphangitis (p. 492) and epizootic lymphangitis (p. 

 490) from farcy, mallein is absolutely indispensable, unless the 

 observer is furnished with a bacteriological microscope, and knows 

 how to use it. 



It is said that mallein is not such a reliable test for glanders 

 in mules, as in horses. 



Mr. Hunting considers that mallein detects glanders in at least 

 98 per cent, of the cases in which it is employed. The correctness 

 of this statement may be unhesitatingly accepted when applying it 

 to animals which are under favourable conditions for this test. 

 A veterinary surgeon who exercises an average amount of care, 

 would certainly not have more than 5 per cent, of failures in 

 diagnosis with mallein, supposing that he tried it on a large 

 number of horses. 



Mallein is especially useful in those obscure cases in which no 



