206 CAUSES OF GLANDERS. 



seen (and so have I) several cases of spontaneous cure from chronic 

 glanders ; and evidence may be brought forward of recovery even 

 from acute glanders combined with farcy." 



" So far from contagion being the ordinary cause of glanders, the 

 Professor estimates that not one horse in a thousand, or even in ten 

 thousand, so receives the disease. The poison of glanders is bred 

 and diffused in an atmosphere rendered impure by repeated respi- 

 ration, and by gaseous impregnations from the dung, urine, and 

 perspiration, emitted in hot and foul stables. No vital being, 

 neither animal nor vegetable, can maintain life in the total absence 

 of pure air ; and, according as an animal is from nature habituated 

 to purity, so, generally speaking, it would seem that he suffers 

 from atmospherical contamination. There are several sorts of 

 vegetables that cannot be grown (at least to perfection) in the 

 vicinity of London, in consequence, we believe, of the impurities 

 continually floating in the atmosphere ; whereas, there are animals, 

 such as rats and mice, and we may add bots, who enjoy health 

 in the most confined and noisome situations. Man can withstand 

 a contaminated or poisonous atmosphere, it would appear, from his 

 habits, much better than the horse: we join house to house, form 

 villages, towns, and large cities ; and we live thus crowded toge- 

 ther with seeming innocuousness : still, to obtain specimens of 

 well-grown forms and robust health, we must go into the country 

 and select them from among the husbandmen ; for in large and 

 populous towns instances are always presenting themselves of 

 rickets, scrofula, consumption, &c. &c." 



" The horse is an animal destined by nature to breathe an atmo- 

 sphere of the purest kind ; in proof of the salubrity of which to 

 him, suffer him to remain in his native fields, and he will live long 

 and ail nothing. But, bring him once into a state of domesticity, 

 place him in a confined situation, in which he is compelled to 

 breathe air that has been already respired, not only by himself but 

 perhaps by other horses also, air impregnated with the exhalations 

 from the urine, dung, and perspiration, and you sacrifice him a 

 victim to malignant and fatal maladies. And none of our domestic 

 animals, no more than horses, can tolerate this with impunity. If 

 poultry are kept in a confined place, they breed what is called the 



