CONTAGION. 223 



from the late Mr. Field's " Records*." Again, we may adduce, as 

 confirmatory evidence — if any be wanting — 



The Compte-Rendu of the Veterinary School at 

 Alfort for 1839-40. MM. Renault and Bouley have prosecuted 

 their researches into the nature and symptoms of glanders, with 

 especial direction of them to its contagious property, to which in- 

 creasing interest has been given since the disease — in so many 

 instances — has proved communicable to the human subject; and 

 they have arrived at the conclusion that acute glanders is contagi- 

 ous hy inoculation from horse to horse. In the animals they have 

 inoculated, without a single exception the infection of glanders has 

 made its appearance from the third to the fifth day. 



Standing, however, as the fact of propagation through inocula- 

 tion does upon the ground of undeniable proof, yet is it also a fact 

 with which those in the habit of practising inoculation are likewise 

 well acquainted, that it is by no means certain that the disease 

 follows the application of the virus : a good deal of fastidiousness 

 or predilection is often manifested on the part of the inoculated 

 subject which we are unable to account for; and this has led some 

 into the error that glanders was not at all or hardly producible in 

 any such manner, and others into the belief that the chances of 

 production were so small as scarcely to render such a result pro- 

 bable. It is evident the success of inoculation must depend upon 

 two conditions : — The condition of the animal from which the 

 matter is taken to communicate the disease, and the condition of 

 the one to whom the matter is applied to receive it ; and that, 

 supposing either of these conditions fail, no result can follow. In 

 the case of the ass but just given, it would appear that the horses 

 from which the matter used in the two first inoculations was ob- 

 tained, were, if glandered at all, but chronically so ; whereas the 

 matter that had the desired effect was procured from a condemned 

 subject in the last or ripest stage of acute glanders. In order to 

 insure inoculation for small-pox or for vaccination, we know sur- 

 geons to be very particular about the day on which they collect 

 their lymph, believing, nay, knowing, it to be more efficacious or 

 " stronger" at one period than at another, and to grow less effica- 



* To be found at p. 183. 



VOL. III. G g 



