170 THE DISEASES OF DOMESTIC ANIMALS. 



"We have said that intercourse had much to do with the increased 

 extension which glanders may acquire — this is well illustrated by 

 the experiences of different wars. In our own country, glanders 

 has acquired much more prominence since the war. In consequence 

 of the late Franco-German War, the percentage of glanders among 

 the horses of Prussia increased (reported cases) from 959 cases for 

 lS69-'70 and 996 for 1870 -'71 to 1,729 for 1871-'72 and 2,058 for 

 lS73-'74. 



In France, during the anti-contagionistic influence of the Alfort 

 school, especially of Dupuy and Bouley, the one looking upon the 

 disease as tuberculosis, the other as a form of pyaemia, and defend- 

 ing these absurdities with all partisan bitterness, the disease ac- 

 quired a perfectly frightful extension, so that in a mortality of 75 

 per thousand among the army-horses, an average of 35 was due to 

 glanders. 



As the contagionistic idea began to gain ground, to the honor of 

 the Lyons school it always adopted this side of the question ; the 

 yearly average slowly but steadily diminished : the deaths falling 

 from 75 to 44'5 per thousand, and the cases of glanders from 35 to 

 20*5 per thousand horses. While in 1846 the French army lost 4'7 

 per cent of its horses from glanders, the mortality in 1864 was only 

 0*9 per cent from the same cause. 



A most remarkable and extensive eruption of glanders occurred 

 at the royal stud of Mezohogyrs, Hungary, between the years 1809 

 and 1816, nearly 20,000 horses perishing. In 1812 alone 12,000 

 perished. This was all due to the disease not being looked upon as 

 contagious, but a simple dyscrasia, in accordance with the humero- 

 pathological tendency of the veterinary medicine of the time. 



In London, and the large English cities, glanders is reported to 

 be steadily on the increase. 



It is so also in this country, without any effective measures being 

 taken to prevent it. 



In Massachusetts we have a useless institution, which bears the 

 name of " Cattle Commission," and is supposed to look after gland- 

 ers, but in all truth it looks after nothing, and investigates nothing, 

 except what it finds by the merest accident, or is reported to it by 

 others. 



Mr. Charles P. Lyman, formerly veterinary surgeon at Springfield, 

 Massachusetts, writes me as follows: 



" Your letter is received, and, although I fear that I can not give 

 you the data as minutely as you wish, yet I will do my best to give 

 the outlines of the outbreak of glanders which we had here during 



