Melioidosis and its Relation to Glanders
Authors: Stanton A. T. , Fletcher William 
Published: May 2009

(1) It is impossible to distinguish the lesions of melioidosis from those of glanders by means of inspection with the naked eye or even with the microscope.

(2) The symptoms and course of the two diseases are similar. Melioidosis generally runs a more acute course.

(3) The mallein test was applied in a case of chronic human melioidosis and gave a positive reaction. The mallein was obtained from Java.

(4) The blood of this chronic case agglutinated the Muktesar and Java strains of B. mallei to full titre and the Minett strain to 10 per cent, of this amount. One of these strains (Muktesar) absorbed the agglutinins for the homologous bacillus.

(5) There are very few horses in the Federated Malay States. Melioidosis is primarily a disease of rodents. All attempts to infect horses have been unsuccessful.

(6) Melioidosis broke out spontaneously among the rabbits, guinea-pigs and rats at the Institute for Medical Research in 1913. The animals became infected through eating contaminated food.

(7) Cases of infection in wild rats and in a domestic cat have occurred far away from this laboratory and independently of it.

(8) Rabbits, guinea-pigs and rats have been infected experimentally, by feeding, by subcutaneous inoculation, by scarification and by the application of infective material to the nasal mucosa.

(9) B. whitmori, whose growth in cultures occur in two forms, a commoner corrugated form and a mucoid form which gives origin to the corrugated type.

(10) B. whitmori differs from B. mallei in the following particulars. It is actively motile. It forms a corrugated growth on glycerine agar, a white opaque growth on ordinary agar and a pellicle on the surface of broth. It grows more rapidly than B. mallei, and it liquefies gelatine in a few days.

(11) B. whitmori resembles B. mallei in the following particulars. The morphology of the organisms is similar. Young cultures of the mucoid form are indistinguishable from B. mallei, by inspection. The growth of the mucoid form on potato is similar. The action on milk and carbohydrates differs in degree only. Both organisms produce Strauss's reaction in guinea-pigs.

(12) Five strains of B. mallei were compared with fourteen strains of B. whitmori. The cultures of B. mallei comprised three from the National Collection at the Lister Institute, one from Muktesar and one from Java. The cultures of B. whitmori had been isolated, some from human cases of melioidosis and some from animals which had acquired the disease naturally.

(13) The serological reactions of these organisms, namely agglutination, absorption and complement-fixation tests, showed that the cultures of B. whitmori were a homogeneous group, but the five strains of B. mallei were sharply divided into two sub-groups by their serological reactions. One sub-group includes the Muktesar and Java strains; the other comprises the three strains from the National Collection (Minett, Egypt and A.).

(14) The first sub-group of B. mallei is very closely related to B. whitmori. The serological reactions of the strain from Muktesar are almost identical with those of B. whitmori.

(15) The three strains of B. mallei from the National Collection, which form the second sub-group, are only distantly related to the Muktesar sub group and to B. whitmori.