MODES OF PROPAGATIOX. 119 



pus from these, with the blood, the secretions, probably the 

 excretions, and all the animal tissues which are permeated by 

 blood or lymph. The volatile infecting agents seem closely 

 connected with the sweat and exhalations of the diseased. 



Chauveau, in his investigations, gives it as his opinion that 

 the active infecting agent, the materies morbi of glanders, 

 is contained, not in the truly fluid or serous portion of 

 the infecting material, but in the formed or corpuscular 

 elements. 



Virchow, however, seems rather inclined to regard the most 

 active disease-inducing factors or elements of the discharges to 

 be, not their anatomical, but their chemical characters, regard- 

 ing these as chiefly disturbing from their acridity and power of 

 inducing irritation. 



The power of life, or the period during which, after separation 

 from its source of origin, the virus of glanders will retain its 

 activity, is considerable, but varies in accordance with the 

 nature of those conditions to which it may be subjected. It is 

 destroyed when mixed with water at a temperature of 133° F. 

 Similar results follow when brought in contact with such 

 chemicals as carbolic acid, chlorine, sulphuric acid, etc. It is 

 said also to lose its virulence through putrefactive decom- 

 position (Gerlach). We know, however, that the vehicle in 

 which the infecting virus is contained may be desiccated, and 

 in this condition maintain its vitality and power for weeks or 

 months. 



I am acquainted with one case where the dried nasal dis- 

 charges of an animal suftering from chronic glanders conveyed 

 the disease to a healthy horse in the form of acute glanders 

 and farcy, when placed in the stable previously occupied by 

 the diseased, two months after the removal of the latter. 



Renault and Bouley state having produced acute farcy after 

 inoculating with dried mucus taken from a glandered horse 

 six weeks before. 



It would also appear from experimental inquiry that the 

 poison of glanders is not to any perceptible extent reduced in 

 virulence either by propagation directly through other horses, 

 or by its passage through other animals, as man; it is also 

 equally active when propagated by retro-inoculation. It is 

 said to lose its power in the digestive canal of man, dogs, swine. 



