286 GLANDERS AND FARCY. 



Turkish i)io\dnces "svliicli have become mdependeut, or separated from 

 the Ottoman territories. The cause of this frequency ia an obvious one. 

 It consists in the abundant opportunity of infection. One horse affected 

 with (occult) glanders in either of the hostile armies can, for obvious 

 reasons, communicate the disease with the greatest fa.eility to a large 

 number of animals. The fact of glanders becoming frequent after each 

 large war has been used very frequently as an argument in favor of a 

 protopathic development, but if it is looked upon in a proper light it 

 proves, if anything, the exclusive spreading of the disease by means of 

 the contagion. 



Prevention and treatment. — As to a medical treatment, there is scarcely 

 a remedy known in the whole materia medica that h;\s not been used 

 against glanders, but, so far at least, with very poor success. It is true 

 a great muny 2)yctcn(Jcd cures are on record. But if the slow or chronic 

 progress of the morbid process, its frequent remissions in warm and dry 

 weather, exacerbations in rough, cold, and inclement weather and in a 

 foul atmosphere, and the great confusion that has prevailed in regard to 

 the true nature of glanders are taken into consideration, it is no wonder 

 that mistakes and deceptions have occurred. Some of the cases that 

 are said to have been cured have been no glanders at ail, and in others 

 the pretended cures have been only temj)orary — a mere remission. Con- 

 firmed f/landcrs must he considered as incitrahle : and it would, therefore, 

 be for the beneht of every one if our general government (Congress) 

 would enact a law which should make it a criminal offense to keep and 

 to use a horse, or any other animal, known to be affected with glanders. 

 Any attempt to cure should also be strictly forbidden, because a prompt 

 and immediate destruction of every animal affected with glanders, a 

 disease which spreads only by means of its contagion, constitutes the 

 best, surest, and cheapest, and in fact the only prevention. 



A case of recent occurrence will serve to illustrate how glanders 

 spreads, and how much cheaper it is to destroy a giandered horse at 

 once than to permit the same to communicate the disease to healthy 

 animals. It will also show the necessity of a stringent law making the 

 sale of an animal known to be affected with a contagious disease a crim- 

 inal offense. 



Last fall Mr. George T , Pottawatomie county, Kansas, bought 



a horse of a Mr. Ch. . . , Manhattan, Riley county, Kansas, and pas- 

 tiu-ed and stabled the same with his other horses, about twenty-four or 

 twenty-five in number. The horse in question, when bought, had some 

 discharge from the nose, which, of course, was pronounced to be nothing 

 but the product of catarrh — in common x)arlance, a cold. In the course 

 of the winter several of Mr. T 's horses commenced to have dis- 

 charges from the nose. Mr. T became alarmed, and brought the 



new horse, whose nasal discharges had increased, and who showed other 

 symptoms of disease, such as a staring coat, emaciation, «S:c., to me for 

 examination. I found the symptoms to be those of an advanced stage 

 of glanders. Subsequent inquiries revealed some of the previous history 

 of the animal. Mr. Ch. . . had bought the horse from another man, 

 whose name I do not remember, only a few days betbre lie sold the same 



to Mr. T , and had Icept the animal, while in his possession, strictly 



separated from his other horses, because he knew that the same had a 

 chronic discharge from the nose, and had had it for about two years. 

 Is not such a transaction criminari? And still, in the case mentioned, 



there is no redi-ess to be had. Mr. T is a comi>aratively poor man ; 



his farm is mortgaged, and all the property he may call his own consists 

 in his stock, but especially in his horses. As I mo^'ed away from Kansas 



