SOCIETY MEETINGS. 
251 
The doctor, in part, stated .that before the discovery of the 
glander bacillus this disease was diagnosed by the clinical symp¬ 
toms only. Mallein is not accurate enough as a diagnostic agent, 
for it is found that a reaction will be given in cases not glandered. 
With a record of 7,000 mallein cases in which post mortems 
were held it was found to be 90% accurate, but this is not con¬ 
sidered accurate enough for practical diagnosis. 
The agglutination method is found to be quite accurate in 
the acute form of glanders, but unreliable in the chronic. In 
chronic cases the blood will very often agglutinate below 1/500. 
The complement-fixation method has been adopted as the of¬ 
ficial test by the Prussian government. 
In making this test a small quantity of blood only is neces¬ 
sary, and results obtained the same day. In over 3,000 cases 
tested by this method about 500 post mortems were held, and in 
every case glander lesions were found. Dr. Eichhorn stated that 
it is safe to consider this method of diagnosing- glanders as 99% 
accurate, and the reaction in nearly all cases is uniformly dis¬ 
tinct. The previous injection of mallein does not seem to affect 
results in this method of diagnosis, but it is recommended that 
the blood be taken before mallein is used. 
One man can easily handle over fifty tests a day. 
Dr. Iv. F. Meyer, director of the laboratory of the Pennsyl¬ 
vania State Livestock Sanitary Board, was then introduced, and 
in discussing Dr. Eichhorn’s address stated that he had carried 
out this test in syphilis and about twenty other diseases and con¬ 
siders it a very accurate method of diagnosis. The doctor 
started the use of this method in 1908 in South Africa, and 
gave the results of some interesting experiences in that country. 
He also used this method in diagnosing epizootic lymphangitis. 
It has also been employed to prove the sale of horse meat in a 
legal case in Philadelphia. I11 contagious abortion it can be 
shown if the animal has once been infected and by this means in¬ 
dicate the necessary precautions to be taken. The vaccine for 
contagious abortion has been in use for about three years, but 
Dr. Meyers states that this is not a long enough period to de¬ 
termine results. 
Drs. Mangan, Chase, Clayton, Berns and several other mem¬ 
bers asked Drs. Meyer and Eichhorn interesting questions rela¬ 
tive to this method of diagnosis, which were answered by the 
speakers in a very clear and satisfactory manner. 
Dr. Berns cited, a number of cases of glanders which appar¬ 
ently had entirely recovered spontaneously. 
