200 



THE MODERN SYSTEM 



but when colts are taken up, broke, and put 

 to wor*" before this disease has taken place, 

 and kept in hot stables, and incautiously fed 

 upon hard and stimulating food ; in such 

 instances. Horses have often this disease in a 

 very violent degree. 



Sometimes the strangles comes on, and does 

 not go through its course in the natural way ; 

 the swelling under the jaws does not suppu- 

 rate, or become an abscess, but remains hard ; 

 or, a small superficial opening takes place, 

 from which a small quantity of matter is dis- 

 charged ; and sometimes is supposed to de- 

 generate into glanders. As I have observed 

 before, glanders is often produced by un- 

 wholesome food and hard work, with close 

 filthy stables, and sudden changes from cold 

 to heat, or from heat to cold ; especially when 

 the weather is very wet as well as very cold. 



This kind of glanders often terminates in 

 consumption ; is accompanied with cough, 

 and the discharge is generally from both 

 nostrils, and more like pus than the matter 

 discharged in the glanders arising from con- 

 tagion. My opinion of this kind of glanders 

 is, that it is not contagious, and should there- 

 fore be distinguished by another name. I 

 would confine the term glanders to those 

 discharges from the nose which were ca- 

 pable of communicating the disease to other 

 Horses. This would be found highly useful 

 in practice. The want of this distinction is 

 another cause of the dangerous opinion I have 

 before made some remarks upon, viz. ; that 

 glanders, in all cases, is not contagious ; an 

 opinion that has led to the most serious losses. 



I now come to a consideration of the most 

 difficult part of the subject, that is, the cure 

 of glanders. As I have demonstrated the 

 manner in which glanders is communicated, 



it is needless to say any thing of the mode, of 

 prevention, except briefly observing, that it 

 can only be accomplished by preventing any 

 glanderous matter from cominsr in contact 

 with the Horse, or mixing with his food or 

 water ; and that the only method of purifying 

 an infected stable, is to remove every thing on 

 which glanderous matter may have fallen, 

 and to wassh and scrape the fixtures, such as 

 the rack and manger, thoroughly ; white- 

 wash it well, and strew a solution of chloride 

 of lime about the stall. 



I have already observed that a glandered 

 Horse has, in several instances, been known 

 to get entirely free from the disorder while 

 employed in moderate work, and carefully 

 fed and attended to, with little or no medi- 

 cine. The general opinions of both English 

 and French veterinarians, 1 believe is, that 

 glanders is incurable, but tJiat farcy is curable. 

 In my own practice I have succeeded in curing 

 many cases of farcy, when it has been a local 

 disorder ; but such cases are generally fol- 

 lowed by glanders, there being often a con- 

 siderable interval (from a few weeks to a few 

 months,) between the disappearance of farcy 

 and the appearance of glanders. When glan- 

 ders and farcy appear at the same time, or 

 when farcy breaks out in a glandered Horse, 

 it depends upon the blood being strongly im- 

 pregnated with the glanderous poison, that I 

 should recommend the Horse to be immedi- 

 ately destroyed. There is one exception, 

 however, to this ; and that is, when a glan- 

 dered Horse inoculates himself, as occasionally 

 will happen. Tlien the farcy is at first local ; 

 but it soon becomes a fresh source of con- 

 tamination, and so increases the disorder in a 

 short time, that it always becomes necessary 

 to destroy the animal. The crre of glanders. 



