114 GLANDEKS AND FARCY. 



mitted that glanders is a contagions malady, it is j-et certain 

 that its propagation from the diseased to the healthy is to a 

 certain extent regulated by individual idiospicrasy or sus- 

 ceptibility. Neither from experimentation nor from clinical 

 observation or recorded history of special outbreaks can we 

 come to absolutely certain conclusions as to the exact mode 

 by which the virus finds an entrance into the system. 



The generally received opinion on this matter is that the 

 infecting material of glanders becomes attached to some 

 exposed or external surface of the body, where, by some breach 

 of tissue continuity already existing, or the production of 

 such through local irritation, it finds its way into the general 

 circulation. In this way it is sought to account for the pro- 

 duction of the disease in cases where healthy animals are 

 brought into contact with the diseased, or where the former 

 have been placed in stables where diseased have previously 

 been located. 



That this is most probably the mode of infection in even 

 the greater number of cases, neither deductions arrived at 

 from a knowledge of the modes by which other infecting 

 poisons operate, nor yet the results of experimental research, 

 nor of clinical observation, would lead us to believe. If it 

 were true that the morbific material of glanders is, as a rule, 

 implanted in the animal system by direct contact, we should 

 expect to meet more frequently, as a primary diagnostic lesion, 

 the specific cutaneous and external changes so characteristic 

 of the disease. 



Now there is little doubt that these external structural 

 changes, whether in the true cutaneous tissues or in the nasal 

 membrane, are in many, probably in the great majority of 

 instances, not the primary, but the secondary or terminal 

 symptoms. We know that when situated on the nasal mucous 

 membrane the tubercles and chancres are generally in the 

 upper part of these cavities, and in the lar3'nx and trachea, 

 before they appear where they are capable of detection. 



If we discard the idea that the poison of glanders as a rule 

 enters the body through the external surface either of the sldn 

 or the visible mucous membranes, it seems that Ave are driven 

 to admit the existence of a volatile infecting virus, and that, 

 as such, it must, where not actually implanted, find its way 



