192 VARIETIES OF GLANDERS. 



flux, and all of the most fetid nature, in consequence of having 

 been shut up for a longer or shorter period, and so undergone 

 a putrefactive fermentation, within the sinuses of the head. Its 

 colour is very variable, depending upon the nature of it, and upon 

 the time it has been retained within the sinus : it may be white, 

 yellow, green, brown, black, according to circumstances ; its 

 colour being often a sort of guide to us in respect to its composition 

 and probable duration under confinement. 



A Distinction must be made, however, between chronic 

 glanders and what we are in the habit of calling nasal gleet ; an 

 affection some horses are known to have either all their lives, or at 

 certain periods of them. We must not set down every horse that 

 comes to us for having had for any length of time, either (more or 

 less) constantly or only at times, a flux from one or from both 

 nostrils. The membrane clothing the nasal chambers and sinuses 

 of the head is, the same as other mucous membranes of the body, 

 liable to derangements in its functions — to secrete too much or 

 too little, or not of the proper quality ; and therefore the same as 

 the membrane of the human urethra, it may become the source of 

 gleet, and of gleet of so long duration that in time it becomes, as 

 it were, habitual, natural to the secreting apparatus. This is the 

 only way in which we can account for horses having, at times, 

 discharges from the nose all their lifetimes; and yet they work, 

 never shewing any glanders : indeed to those acquainted with 

 them, causing little or no alarm. The important question for us 

 to consider is, how are cases of nasal gleet to be distinguished 

 from those of chronic glanders. In all the cases I have seen, with 

 no exceptions that I remember, though I do not deny there may 

 be some — the discharge has consisted of an unusually white mu- 

 cous or sero-mucous matter, and in several instances has been 

 remarked to be grumous or lumpy. There is in general no enlarge- 

 ment under the jaw ; and in this circumstance, as well as in the 

 white mucous and grumous nature of the discharge, together with 

 the history of its origin, when that can be obtained, may be found 

 pretty safe ground of distinction between nasal gleet and chronic 

 glanders*. 



* For an account of nasal gleet, see vol. ii, p. 24-*28. 



