164 THE DISEASES OF DOMESTIC ANIMALS. 



Within the last year Mr. Fleming has given up all the above 

 views, and joined with emphasis the contagionistic party. 



Williams says : " The remote causes of glanders, though not 

 yet clearly understood, are often found to arise from many debilitat- 

 ing influences, such as old age, bad food, overwork, exhausting dis- 

 eases and general bad management ; from specific miasmatic or 

 animal poisons, such as those generated in localities where large 

 numbers of horses are congregated together, even where the stables 

 are well ventilated, lighted, drained, and the animal well attended 

 to in every way, but more particularly where the contrary is the 

 case." 



Nearly all veterinary authors seem still to adhere to this opinion, 

 but Roell has come out a specific contagionist in the last edition of 

 his " Special Pathology." 



Fleming quotes, in proof of the theory of spontaneous generation 

 of glanders (spontaneous means the development of something out 

 of nothing), the well-known extension of glanders among horses of 

 armies during campaigns, as illustrated by the late Franco-German 

 War, and other such experiences. 



It would seem as if the whole veterinary profession had never 

 had eyes or brains, or else this manner of extension would never re- 

 quire the theory of spontaneous generation to support it. One would 

 think that pulmonary and constitutional glanders was as much a 

 myth to the veterinarians of the day as it was to Lafosse at the 

 end of the last century, who ridiculed any form of true glanders 

 other than nasal. 



Lesering* gives a case illustrating the ease with which glanders 

 can occur among army-horses, and still the cause be unsuspected. 

 I will give it as nearly as jDossible in his own words : 



" When glanders occurs more frequently in times of war or 

 mobilization of the army, the explanation is to be easily found in 

 the fact that great numbers of horses are centered upon a small ex- 

 tent of territory, and the opportunity to infection greatly increased 

 thereby." 



" This assertion is amply illustrated by a personal experience of 

 my own. In Prussia, where there is no want of mobilizing the 

 forces, statistics have proved that after such occasions glanders ac- 

 quires a shocking extension among the horses. The open nature of 

 these manoeuvres, as well as the known care and careful revision to 

 which in the Prussian army horses are subjected, make it absolutely 

 impossible that undue labor, bad feed, etc., should have any influence 



* " Bericht a. d. Vet. Wesen im Sachsen," 1862. 



