474 REPORT OF THE COMMISSIONER OF AGRICULTURE. 
Turkish provinces which have become independent, or separated from 
the Ottoman territories. The cause of this frequency is an obvious one. 
It consists in the abundant opportunity of infection. One horse affected 
with (occult) glanders in either of the hostile armies can, for obvious 
reasons, communicate the disease with the greatest facility to a large 
number of animals. The fact of glanders becoming frequent after each 
large war has been used very frequently as an argument in favor of a 
protopathic development, but if it is looked upon in a proper light it 
proves, if anything, the exclusive spreading of the disease by means of 
the contagion. . 
Prevention and treatment.—As to a medical treatment, there is scareely 
a remedy known in the whole materia medica that has not been used 
against glanders, but, so far at least, with very poor success. It is true 
a great many pretended cures are on record. Butif the slow or chronic 
progress of the morbid process, its frequent remissions in warm and dry 
weather, exacerbations in rough, cold, and inclement weather and in a 
foul atmosphere, and the great confusion that has prevailed in regard to 
the true nature of glanders are taken into consideration, it is no wonder 
that mistakes and deceptions have occurred. Some of the cases that 
are said to have been cured have been no glanders at ail, and in others 
the pretended cures have been only temporary—a mere remission. Con- 
firmed glanders must be considered as incurable ; and it would, therefore, 
be for the benefit of every one if our general government (Congress) 
would enact a law which should make it a criminal offense to keep and 
to use a horse, or any other animal, known to be affected with glanders. 
Any attempt to cure should also be strictly forbidden, because a prompt 
and immediate destruction of every animal affected with glanders, a 
disease which spreads only by means of its contagion, constitutes the 
best, surest, and cheapest, and in fact the only prevention. 
A case of recent occurrence will serve to illustrate how glanders 
spreads, and how much cheaper it is to destroy a glandered horse at 
once than, to permit the same to communicate the disease to healthy 
animals. “It will also show the necessity of a stringent law making the 
sale of an animal known to be affected with a contagious disease a erim- 
inal offense. 
Last fail Mr. George T....., Pottawatomie county, Kansas, bought 
a horse of a Mr. Ch. .. , Manhattan, Riley county, Kansas, and pas- 
tured and stabled the same with his other horses, about twenty-four or 
twenty-five in number. The horse in question, when bought, had some 
discharge from the nose, which, of course, was pronounced to be nothing 
but the product of catarrh—in common parlance, a cold. In the course 
of the winter several of Mr. T.....’s horses commenced to have dis- 
charges from the nose. Mr. T..... became alarmed, and brought the 
new horse, whose nasal discharges had increased, and who showed other 
symptoms of disease, such as a staring coat, emaciation, &c., to me for 
examination. I found the symptoms to be those of an advanced stage 
of glanders. Subsequent inquiries revealed some of the previous history 
of the animal. Mr. Ch... had bought the horse from another man, 
whose name I do not remember, only a few days before he sold the same 
to Mr.T.....,and had kept the animal, while in his possession, strictly 
separated from his other horses, because he knew that the same had a 
chronic discharge from the nose, and had had it for about two years. 
Ts not such a transaction criminal? And still, in the case mentioned, 
there is no redress to be had. Mr... ....isacomparatively poor man; 
his farm is mortgaged, and all the property he may call-his own consists 
in his stock, but especially in his horses. As I moved away from Kansas 
