404 Dr Eck on the Occurrence of' Glanders 



sesses with respect to animals of the Equine species. Even io 

 the naost modern times, it has been expressly denied by Godine, 

 Dupuy, and others. The inconvenience of many police regula- 

 tions, founded on a conviction of the contagious nature of the 

 disease, has favoured the partial introduction of the opposite opi- 

 nion, which the uncertainty of the diagnosis in the first stage, 

 and the fact, that a horse labouring under glanders, continues 

 for such a length of time in the apparent enjoyment of general 

 good health, has tended to corroborate. Again, where one horse 

 labours under glanders, and a second or a third becomes affected, 

 it is maintained that each have been exposed to the influence of 

 similar atmospheric or local causes ; and where a liorse exposed 

 among a team of glandered horses, remains free from the dis- 

 ease, it is looked upon as a convincing proof of its non-contagi- 

 ous nature. On the other hand, the inoculations made by Vi- 

 borg,* and his extensive experience of the destructive conse- 

 quences of the foregoing views, have diffused more widely the 

 conviction of the contagious nature of glanders. Besides, the 

 reports of almost every provincial board of health, in mo- 

 dern times, have furnished cases of the kind ; and all our 

 medical police counsels have assumed as proven tlie contagi- 

 ous nature of glanders, a fact of which no experienced dealer 

 in horses now entertains a doubt. And, though the fluid which 

 flows from the nostrils is recognised as the chief source of infec- 

 tion, and that danger is chiefly to be apprehended from the use 

 of utensils, mangers, and drinking vessels, &c. which have been 

 in contact with the glandered horses, and which are so likely 

 to come in contact with the mucous membrane of the nostrils 

 of sound horses ; still we can scarcely doubt that the con- 

 tagion may not also exist in other excretions ; and that occa- 

 sionally, as for instance, in close damp stalls, sound horses may 

 become affected without any contact, probably through the me- 

 dium of the inspired air. That many horses are less susceptible 

 of this disease ; that the intensity of the disease itself differs in 

 degree ; that the matter of glanders loses its infectious proper- 

 ties by exposure to heat and fresh air ; and the sound horses 

 may remain for months in company with glandered without tak- 



• Uber Potz, Purm und Kropfder Pferde, in Seinen Samtnlungen. Band. 

 2 and 3. 



