CHRONIC GLANDERS. 479 



taneously. It is usually met with in the most severe form 

 in large cities, where many horses stand crowded together 

 in dark underground, and badly-ventilated stables, in coal- 

 pits, and similar places where the animals are compelled to 

 breathe foul air and noxious vapours for several hours out 

 of the twenty-four. Impure water, a damaged or insuffi- 

 cient supply of food, hard work, etc., are all predisposing 

 causes, and render the animal more susceptible to the con- 

 tagious influence. It is more common, and of greater 

 severity, during the progress of war than at any other time, 

 owing to the manner in which the horses are kept, being 

 exposed to all kinds of weather and often half-starved. An 

 animal is also more likely to contract glanders when greatly 

 debilitated from previous disease, such as influenza, diabetes, 

 etc., some claiming that the latter disease frequently ter- 

 minates in glanders ; but no proof has ever been adduced in 

 support of the assertion. There is no question but what 

 glanders does occasionally follow diabetes and other debili- 

 tating diseases, and the operation of castration ; but it is 

 because the animal, being at the time weak and debilitated, 

 is exposed to contagious influences, and is unable to resist 

 the action of the poison, while the same animal, if in 

 robust health, might be exposed a dozen times without 

 contracting the disease. That it may be transmitted from 

 parents to progeny seems evidenced by an instance in 

 which a mare affected with glanders gave birth to a foal 

 which appeared perfectly healthy, and apparently con- 

 tinued in a state of perfect health until it attained the 

 age of four and a half years, when it died of a well-marked 

 case of glanders, without having been exposed to con- 

 tagious influences so far as anyone knew. 



Coniagium. — Glanders cannot be considered as a highly 

 contagious disease, cases having been known in which 

 healthy animals worked by the side of affected animals, 



