Infectious Diseases of Animals. 243 



who use them that their effect upon the wool and skin of the animal is 

 beneficial, irrespective of their curative influence upon the disease. 



Flock-owners who are desirous of avoiding an outbreak of scab among their 

 flocks are in the habit of periodically dipping their sheep in one of the solutions 

 which are in common use, and of also applying the same precautionary 

 measure to all the sheep which they introduce upon their farms before they 

 are allowed to mingle with their own stock. 



It cannot be questioned from the results which are obtained by the 

 adoption of this system, that its universal application would have the eflect of 

 eradicating the disease. 



Glanders. 



Glanders is the only disease of an undoubtedly infectious character which 

 occurs among horses in this country. Its characteristics are a peculiar form of 

 ulceration in the membrane of the nostrils, sometimes extending down the 

 trachea, tuberculous deposits in the lungs, and enlargement of the glands 

 under the jaw. Discharge from one or both of the nostrils is an invariable 

 symptom of the disease, and this, taken in connection with the swelling of the 

 sub-maxillary glands, is considered by some to be evidence of its existence. 

 Enlargement of the glands, however, with a discharge from the nostrils, is very 

 common in ordinary catarrhal affections. Ulceration of the membrane 

 of the nostrils also occasionally occurs in catarrhal diseases. Owing to 

 the existence of these symptoms in such a common malady as catarrh, some 

 difference of opinion has occasionally existed among professional men as to the 

 precise indications which should be taken as diagnostic of glanders, and it 

 would appear that there is no symptom which can be accepted as invariably 

 indicative of the presence of that disease, while there are certain signs which, 

 taken together, are always characteristic of it. 



The ulceration of the membrane of the nostrils and the colour of the 

 membrane itself are, in many respects, peculiar and distinctive. The character 

 of the enlargement beneath the jaws and glands is unlike the ordinary tume- 

 faction which is observed in the cases of common catarrh, besides which it 

 will generally be found that there is something in the history of the case and 

 the conditions under which the animal is placed which will assist the inquirer 

 in coming to a conclusion. 



Glanders occurs among horses which are used for omnibuses and cab work 

 and the rougher kinds of draught work. It is comparatively rare among 

 animals that are properly attended to, regularly fed, and not overworked. 



In some instances it is difEcult to ascertain the precise origin of the affection 

 among a number of horses in a particular establishment. The horse first 

 attacked may not have been recently purchased and so far as is known may 

 not have been in contact with a diseased animal. But so long as it is the 

 practice to use glandered horses for night work it is not diflicult to understand 

 that the contagium of glanders, which is undoubtedly contained in the dis- 

 charge from the nostrils, may be left on the edge of a drinking trough, or a 

 cart or a passing vehicle, and so be brought in contact with the nostrils of 

 a healthy subject, even if the diseased and healthy animals do not actually 

 touch each other, as they are very likely to do in the traffic of a large town. 



One peculiar feature of glanders is the length of its duration in the animal's 

 , system without the production of any changes which are destructive to life. 

 In some instances the disease assumes an acute form and advances on rapidly 

 to a fatal termination, but, in the majority of cases, it remains in a sub-acute 

 form, exercising no deleterious effect upon the animal's appetite or his powers 

 of working, and permitting him to live and spread the disease sometimes for 

 years. 



This is particularly the case when the disease occurs in young subjects, old 

 and debilitated animals succumb more readily to its influence as would naturally 



E 2 



