No. 5. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 279 



progress in recent years handling glanders and hog cholera. There 

 has been no remedy discovered yet that will cure either disease. In 

 glanders our progress has been made in the improved methods for 

 diagnosis, while in hog cholera it has been in the vaccination for 

 ^prevention. In former times glanders was recognized in horses only 

 when the disease was fair advanced. Before this stage was reached 

 the glandered animal may have passed the infection on to man, 

 horses, and mules, which may have died from it before the symptoms 

 had attracted attention in the horse that gave the infection. Later 

 the mallein test came into use. This test was somewhat similar to 

 the tuberculin test for tuberculosis, but much less reliable and mis- 

 takes were often made. In some cases healthy horses were con- 

 demned and destroyed by its use and in others the test failed to re- 

 veal the presence of the disease. 



For the past few years we have been using a combination test for 

 glanders that is reliable in practically every case. These tests are 

 made jointly in the stable and laboratory. A special proparation 

 of mallein is dropped in the suspected horse's eye; at the same time 

 a sample of blood is taken from the jugular vein for laboratory ex- 

 amination. If the animal has glanders the eye becomes inflamed in 

 about 12 hours and clears up fully, during the next 24 hours. If the 

 horse is free from glanders, the eye remains clear. The blood ex- 

 amination serves as a check on the eye test. Both of these tests are 

 extremely delicate and often will reveal the presence of glanders in 

 a horse perhaps a year or more before there is a discharge from the 

 nose, an open sore on the body or any other observable sympton. 

 Such an animal is often a greater source of danger than one in the 

 last stages of the disease for the reason that no precautions are 

 taken in the first instance and reasonably safe measures are prac- 

 ticed with the horse with the open lesions. 



Where an open case of glanders is found in a stable, it is promptly 

 destroyed and all other susceptible animals are given the eye and 

 blood tests. In some cases from two to twenty per cent, of the non- 

 suspected horses fail to pass these tests. A careful physical exam- 

 ination may show no suspicious symptoms even to one thoroughly 

 trained in the diseases of animals, yet the State recommends that 

 they should be destroyed at once. They are appraised at their ac- 

 tual value and destroyed but the State cannot pay more than two 

 thirds or |60. An autopsy is then made to see if the condemnation 

 was justified. About 300 such autopsies have been made and no 

 mistakes have been found. It is often difficult to convince the owner 

 that his horse has glanders when it is perfectly healthy, so far as 

 anybody can see. The State could safely pay an owner full value 

 in every case where a mistake is made. The owner would be more 

 easily convinced at times if the State could pay him full value if a 

 mistake should be made. Glanders is seldom seen in the rural sec- 

 tion of the State. It is much less common now than in previous 

 years in the large cities and should be exterminated entirely. This 

 could be done rather easily if we were not compelled to purchase 

 horses from other states. It was considered wise to close the pub- 

 lic drinking fountains in Philadelphia during the past summer to 

 prevent the further spread of what promised to be rather a large 

 outbreak of glanders. The disease soon subsided and the troughs 

 and fountains were again opened in the fall. 



