Glanders in a Military Research Microbiologist

Abstract

Infection with Burkholderia mallei (formerly Pseudomonas mallei) can cause a subcutaneous infection known as farcy or can disseminate to cause the condition known as glanders. In humans, acute infection with B. mallei is characterized by necrosis of the tracheobronchial tree, pustular skin lesions, and either a febrile pneumonia, if the organism was inhaled, or signs of sepsis and multiple abscesses, if the skin was the portal of entry.¹ At the turn of the 20th century, glanders was an important cause of death among horses, and there were secondary, often fatal, infections in humans.² Because of the lethal and contagious nature of the disease, B. mallei was considered an ideal agent for biologic warfare and was used for this purpose by Germany in World War I.³