158 
VETERINARIUS. 
ing with methyl blue and using an alkali, I was able to demon¬ 
strate the presence of glanders bacilli, proving that the tubercles 
were not those of tuberculosis. 
Do EXPERIMENTS WITH PURE CULTIVATIONS OF GLANDERS BACILLI 
CONFIRM THESE STATEMENTS AS TO THEIR LOSS OF VIRULENCE UNDER 
SIMILAR CIRCUMSTANCES ? 
The following experiments were made : Silk threads were 
sterilized by exposure to a temperature of 150° C. for half an 
hour; they were then impregnated with material containing the 
bacilli, and these rapidly dried on a glass plate and placed in prop¬ 
erly closed sterilized tubes until ready for use. 
Material taken from the spleen of a field mouse or a purulent 
degenerated lymph-gland of a guinea-pig, became sterile in the 
course of a few days. Cultures upon blood serum or potatoes 
rubbed up in bouillon was used to saturate silk threads, which 
were then dried, retained their activity longer, though the period 
was somewhat varied. They developed actively after such treat¬ 
ment for four days; after eight days but few developed, while 
after three weeks’ drying on the threads they had lost all activity. 
A special experiment proved very interesting on account of 
the long time the desiccated material retained its activity. It was 
as follows : 
A tube, filled with stiffened blood serum, was sown with a 
cultivation of the eleventh generation, and placed in a thermostat 
having a constant temperature of 37° C. On the seventh day it 
lost its transparency, and appeared whitish, with non-reflected 
light. The cultivation was removed from the surface of the 
serum with a sterilized platinum needle and placed in the fluid at 
the bottom of the tube, where it was held in suspension; a num¬ 
ber of sterilized silk threads were then placed in this fluid for 
some hours, when they were taken out, placed on a glass plate 
and rapidly dried, and when dry placed in a glass tube for safe 
keeping. Two field mice inoculated with them died three days 
afterwards of glanders. 
Two field mice were subjected, from time to time, to inocula¬ 
tion with these threads, the interval being longer and longer. The 
diagnosis in each case was made by coloring the material and 
