160 DISEASES OF THE LYMPHATIC SYSTEM. 



accidental occurrence, known even to exist ! So great is the be- 

 neficial change wrought in our cavalry through the introduction 

 into the service of veterinary surgeons. 



I can recollect, myself, the day when glanders and farcy pre- 

 vailed to that extent anfiong the horses of public departments that 

 hundreds — nay, thousands — of pounds sterling were yearly sacri- 

 ficed at the horse-slaughterers' shrines ; during the last seventeen 

 years, however, that I have served in the Guards, I have had to 

 treat but four regimental cases of these diseases; and these four 

 — as I shall hereafter be able to shew — would not have occurred 

 had not the regiment gone into the locality of contamination. 



Another most important — most tristful change that has taken 

 place in respect to glanders and farcy, is the transfer of the disease 

 from the quadruped to the human being. Many years ago the 

 late Professor of the Veterinary College taught — and every disciple 

 of his believed — that the disease Avas peculiar, in its infection re- 

 stricted, to the horse and his fellows in species, the ass and the 

 mule : sad, however, to relate, scarce twenty years had this doc- 

 trine, ex cathedra, prevailed, when a veterinary student, a school- 

 fellow of mine, through dissection contracted the disease, proving 

 but too fatally in his own person, poor fellow ! the complete fallacy 

 of all notions about insusceptibility : since which I need hardly 

 add, the melancholy truth of the human as well as the equine 

 species being obnoxious to both glanders and farcy has had but 

 too many mournful realizations. 



In the investigation I am about to institute into the causes and 

 nature of glanders and farcy, and into the efficacy of such medica- 

 ments as have at one time or another been brought forward as 

 remedies or antidotes for those diseases, I do not anticipate being 

 able to elicit or produce much, if an}^ thing, that is neio : should I, 

 however, succeed in culling such materials froni the ample sources 

 of information lying open before me as shall, by judicious compila- 

 tion, form what our neighbours the French are pleased to call, in 

 briefer language than we can express the same, a corps de doctrine, 

 I may, at least, become entitled to the merit of having laid a founda- 

 tion serviceable to future incpiircrs in the same mysterious depart- 

 ment of science. 



