CONTAGION. 210 



made are without " a true dilfereiice." We learn from the latter 

 eminent authority, that M. Dupuytren regarded infection as " the 

 contamination of the air by persons confined in low, close, ill- 

 ventilated, and dirty situations, and by vegetable and animal sub- 

 stances undergoing decomposition, the emanations with which the 

 air is thereby charged acting on man as poisonous agents." — ''Con- 

 tagion, on the other hand, Dupuytren considers to be in many 

 respects independent of atmospherical conditions, and a species of 

 germ or virus developed in the bodies of the sick, or forming an at- 

 mosphere around them containing the principle of the malady; 

 and through the medium of this germ, virus, or morbid principle, 

 the malady is transmitted to the healthy." — Dr. Copland himself 

 uses the word infection " in it's, generic acceptation :" — ''applying it 

 to whatever may affect, so as ultimately to taint, jjollute, or corrujit 

 the body.'' And the word contagion, as a form or kind of infec- 

 tion — ''as an infection by immediate or mediate contact— d^^ a 

 jwllution by the touchy With a desire to conform in the use of 

 these terms, as nearly as we can, to this lucid exposition of their 

 true or natural signification, we shall use the word contagion to 

 express the transfer of glanders or farcy, through whatever means, 

 from one horse to another ; and the word infection, for such taint 

 or pollution /rom other causes as still may produce the disease, the 

 same as though it had originated from inoculation or contagion. 



The Contagiousness of Glanders has proved a fruitful 

 theme of disputation among veterinary writers; some contending 

 that a glandered horse carried a poisoned atmosphere about with him 

 wherever he went, contaminating all other horses within a certain 

 distance of him ; others as confidently assuring us that we had 

 nothing to fear unless by actual contact, and not very much even 

 then. All the old writers, some of the modern, are in favour of 

 contagion : " it infects the very air," says Solleysell ; " it is caused 

 by contagion alone," says Volpi ; and White, of our own country, 

 confirming what Volpi has asserted, concludes by saying he has 

 " long held the same opinion." The first to question this doctrine 

 was Lafosse: out of seven species or varieties of glanders he de- 

 scribed, but one he said was contagious, and that rarely propagated 

 its contagion. After the Lafosscs' (father and son's) days, the doc- 



