CONTAGIOxN. 225 



the subject of it. I do not know that in any instance man has 

 taken the disease save from inoculation : a fact somewhat singular, 

 and one that possibly may prove of some service to us hereafter. 



It is not reasoning on sound pathological principles to argue that 

 a disease is not contagious, simply from the circumstance of matter 

 supposed, or even proved, to contain its virus having been be- 

 smeared upon the Schneiderian membrane, or having been swal- 

 lowed into the stomach, without being followed by contamination. 

 I have myself, on several occasions, rubbed upon this membrane 

 what I imagined to be glanderous matter with impunity. On the 

 other hand, I have produced the disease in this manner. In an 

 experiment apparently so simple as this appears, there are still 

 several conditions on which its success must depend. There is, 

 as was before observed, the condition of the matter, dependent on 

 the kind, the stage, the duration of the disease affecting the subject 

 from which it was taken ; next, there is the condition of the 

 subject to which it is applied to receive the disease ^ ; and, lastly, 

 there is to be taken into the account the condition of the Schnei- 

 derian membrane, ordinarily shielded as it is by its natural mucous 

 secretion from harm, and resistent as it is by nature to the ac- 

 tion of virus or poison of any kind. I have, on many occasions, 

 imbrued my own hands with the matter of glanders, falsely be- 

 lieving my constitution to be insusceptible of taking any harm, 

 and therefore unheeding whether there were scratches or wounds 

 upon my hands or not : although however I escaped, and hundreds 

 of others escaped infection, yet, at length, did one and then 

 another person catch the disease ; and now veterinarians no longer 

 dare do that which they have a hundred times before fearlessly 

 done, and with impunity t. 



* I quite agree in opinion with Mr. Vines, that " strong, healthy, well- 

 bred horses are by far the least susceptible ;" — "while, on the contrary, those 

 animals which are badly fed and out of condition, especially asses, whose 

 systems are always weak, are the most susceptible." — Practical Treatise on 

 the Diseases of the Horse. 



t We have endeavoured, by a succession of inoculations, to determine 

 whether acute glanders loses its contagious property by reproduction ; and 

 we have seen that, even in the seventh generation, the virulence was as active 

 in its effects as when it proceeded from glanders spontaneously developed. — 

 Compte Rendu oj the Veterinary School at Alfort^^for 18-11-2. 



