1889.] PUBLIC DOCUMENT — No. 4. 399 



tation of the stock and stables of the owner, though they 

 destroy the animals. This is especially the fact in Boston, 

 where not a case of glanders has been reported to the Board 

 of Health during the last seven months, in which time it is 

 certain that some animals infected with this disease have been 

 destroyed, and many others may have been removed. There 

 are several localities in the State which appear to be centres 

 of infection ; notably, the vicinity of Springfield and of 

 Adams, and in these the local authorities should exercise 

 great care and watchfulness. In our last report information 

 was given of a peculiar case of trouble with a large number 

 of horses belonging to the Cambridge horse-car company, of 

 which, at one time, we had isolated 192 animals as suspects. 

 They presented some abnormal conditions of the lymphatics 

 and of the mucous surfaces, but none of the lesions which all 

 agree are evidence of glanders. The members of the Board 

 entertained radical differences of opinion in relation to the 

 import of the conditions found, and their proper course of 

 action in the disposal of the case ; but as, with a single ex- 

 ception, there was no evidence of the disease in the acute 

 form among the many hundreds of animals we examined, the 

 192 we isolated, or the many thousands with which they 

 were brought in daily contact, and should have developed the 

 disease if it really existed, the opinion was formed by a 

 majority of the Board that the isolated suspects were not a 

 public danger, and they were from time to time set at liberty 

 and put back upon the road to their work, the last eight 

 being released April 2, seven months after their first isola- 

 tion. Under direction of the Board, 178 of these suspected 

 horses were quartered at the Murray Street stable and worked 

 together. We visited this stable and examined a number 

 of the horses December 28, fourteen months after they 

 were first placed under surveillance, and found them in the 

 same condition, as when first isolated, apparently in perfect 

 healthy in the opinion of the majority of the Board, as well 

 as all the other horses which were stabled with them. The 

 suspects had performed fully their proportionate share of the 

 work of the company ; there had been no known cases of 

 glanders, and but two deaths from any cause. At this date 

 no facts have developed which prove that the public safety 



