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i^IISDLENT TUMOURS: DISEASES OF THE GLANDS. j.^y 



CHAPTER III. 



EXTERNAL DISORDERS. 



Purulent Tumours : Diseases of the Glands. 



Strangles, Glanders, Farcv, Grease, as they owe their origin to tho 

 ■ame predisposing cause so evidently, that the appearance of either is good 

 assurance that no other disorder is then to be apprehended — neither of tho 

 above nor those treated of in the preceding chapter, a few prehminary obser- 

 vations should occupy attention, before we treat of any one in detail. Both 

 series of diseases are in like manner constitutional, or residing in the blood ; 

 and the whole class agree together so nearly in cause, symptoms, and effect, 

 that the situation of each on the various parts of the body constitutes the maiu 

 distinction between them; as this does also affect the appearance and consis- 

 tency of the matter produced. 



What I most strenuously maintain is, that the latent cause of all tumours, 

 inflamed glands, and spontaneous discharge of matter by skin or membrane, 

 is entirely attributable to the actual state of blood of the individual animal. 

 Whence 1 infer, that some horses arc more liable to incur contagious diseases 

 than others, and this in a degree proportioned to the state of the blood at the 

 time of communication ; so that some might escape with impunity, whilst others 

 meet with certain death from the self-same cause. This accounts for the great- 

 er virulence with which some horses incur glanders, for example, compared 

 to what others suffer, which catch the disorder at the same moment of time ; 

 as was proved on a largish sort of a scale, and that pretty well known among 

 practitioners, during the late war on the continent. The case was briefly 

 this: — A transport with cavalry horses on board, on its way to the Low Coun- 

 tries, met with bad weather, so that the hatches were battened down, and in 

 this manner were part of the horses suffocated. Of those which survived, 

 amounting to some twenty-two or more, scarcely one escaped the glanders , 

 but, notwithstanding we may conclude that they infected and reinfected each 

 other at the same moment, and under precisely the same circumstances as to 

 heat, respiration, and privations, yet the symptoms varied greatly, and some 

 few recovered so readily as to leave great doubt whether they really had re- 

 ceived the glanders or not, whilst others exhibited real glanders in the highest 

 degree of virulence. Between these extremes, we are informed, the re- 

 «iainder were variously affected : all which circumstances prove incontestibly 

 how much depended ujwn the previous health of each individual, the vitiation 

 of its blood aud its co-fitness or adaption to receive the infection. I imagine 

 this* to be conclusive of the doctrine I have all along laid down. But I wil! 

 adduce another authority — a veterinary writer of France, who carries the 

 principle even farther than I have adventured to push it. 



With that specious ingenuity which attends all affairs of research in that 

 country, an author named Dupuy, who also quotes the rapport of another 

 called Gilbert, deduces the disposition to contract such disorders from the pro 

 genitors of the afflicted, or, as I should have said, from the blood or breed, and 

 he recommends a corrective kind of regimen for brood mares and staUioria ; 

 that is to say, in other words, an airy situation for the breeding stud, witb 

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