Acute Glanders. 703 
Acute glanders, which usually develops from the chronic 
form in horses, but frequently appears primarily in mules and 
asses is characterized by rapidly aggravated symptoms of a 
general acute infection. Attended with sudden elevation of 
temperature and other febrile symptoms large numbers of 
fresh glanders nodes and their consequent ulcers appear in the 
course of a few days, on any portion of the body, but particularly 
in the nose and under the skin. The nasal mucous membrane 
throughout its extent, may, in the course of 2 to 3 days, become 
thickly studded with nodules and ulcers; coincident with this 
condition is a profuse and often bloody nasal discharge; the 
respiration becomes wheezing as a result of the swollen nasal 
mucous membranes and of the submucous connective tissue, 
while the submaxillary glands become larger and sensitive. 
Simultaneously with the appearance of these conditions 
acute edematous swellings with nodes or farcy buds in the sur- 
rounding cutis and subcutaneous tissue make their appearance; 
the nodes soon undergo softening, the resulting ulcers become 
confluent, producing extensive discolored, ulcerating surfaces. 
The superficial lymph glands undergo acute swelling and, in 
some instances, suppuration. 
In the meantime the animals, in a constant condition of 
fever, emaciate rapidly, respiration becomes labored, and pulse 
accelerated and small; finally diarrhea sets in, whereupon death 
usually follows in the course of the second or third week of 
the acute affection. 
Course. The course of this disease may be extremely 
variable, extending over a few weeks or over several years 
(Dieckerhoff was able to trace the course of one case back for 
seven years while Petrowsky reports a case of six years ' stand- 
ing). In the course of the disease, which is usually chronic 
in character, acute exacerbations alternate with periods of 
subsidence or of apparent complete arrest of the morbid 
process; near the end, however, the chronic cases usually as- 
sume an acute character and terminate with the symptoms 
above described. In rare cases the fatal termination is the 
result of gradual exhaustion or of a sudden pulmonary hemor- 
rhage. The temperature elevations that are occasionally ob- 
served in the course of the chronic disease, are usually due to 
the development of fresh glanderous foci, particularly in the 
formation of glanderous lesions in the skin and subcutaneous 
connective tissue. 
The acute exacerbations may occur without external cause 
in the normal course of the disease, or they may appear as the 
result of an intercurrent acute affection, as for instance an 
influenza-catarrh of the upper air passages. In general the 
disease develops more rapidly in animals in a poor state of 
nutrition or in hard worked animals in which it assumes an 
acute character at an earlier stage than under favorable con- 
