260 DR. LEGEAR'S STOCK BOOK. 



CHAPTER XIX. 

 CONTAGIOUS DISEASES. 



GLANDERS AND FARCY. 



Glanders and its external form designated as farcy, has been 

 known from early antiquity. Probably no contagious disease of 

 the horse is so widely spread, there being but one country Aus- 

 tralia so far as we can learn, in which the horse is said to be 

 wholly free from the disease. Its prevalence in various countries 

 varies greatly, however, and there are also great variations in the 

 prevalence of the disease in the same country at different periods. 

 It affects not only the horse, but spreads by contact directly or 

 indirectly to the ass, mule, and other solid hoofed animals, and 

 to man. Sheep, goats, and pigs may have the disease, but cat- 

 tle will resist it entirely. 



Scientific investigations in all parts of the world have proven 

 that the two complaints are only different manifestations of one 

 and the same disease. This has been shown time and again 

 through inoculating animals with either the discharge from the 

 nose of a glandered horse or with the matter from a farcy ulcer, 

 and having either or both forms of the disease produced. The 

 term glanders is applied to the disease when the interior of the 

 nose, the lungs or other portions of the organs of respiration are 

 affected, while the term farcy is used when superficial parts, the 

 skin, etc., of the body are invaded. Eminent investigators have 

 definitely established the fact that glanders is a specific con- 

 tagious disease, due solely to the glanders bacillus, and that the 

 disease is incapable of spontaneous generation, but must at all 

 times depend upon the presence of the bacilli, which in turn 

 must be derived from the parent bacilli of the same kind. 



