280 SEAT AND NATURE OF GLANDERS. 



each other. These constitute his " Considerations Preliininaires." 

 The work itself is devoted to the consideration of what he denomi- 

 nates " chronic" farcy and glanders in man. 



Few histories of disease, perhaps, carry with them more interest 

 than the one which, by extracts from authors, writers, and lectu- 

 rers on the subject, we have just finished tracing, from the earliest 

 records down even to the present period. The primeval notion 

 was, that the nasal discharges came from the brain — nay, consisted 

 even of the cerebral matter itself running away through the nos- 

 trils : and considering how white and curdly (brain-like) the nasal- 

 fluxes in chronic glanders often are, the idea was not, in the times 

 in which it was conceived, so very romantic a one. Succeeding 

 writers located the disease in some of the viscera — in the liver, the 

 spleen, the lungs, &c. ; and in later times it was, in accordance 

 with the humoral pathology in vogue in those days, said to be in 

 the blood. 



To Lafosse the veterinary world most assuredly is indebted for 

 the discovery of the true seat of glanders. And, considering the 

 good health horses for a time enjoy with the disease, together with 

 the fact that many that die of it exhibit disease in no other part 

 save in the head, and that his injections did on occasions, no doubt, 

 suspend, if not cure, fluxes from the nose, it is no matter of surprise 

 to us that Lafosse pronounced glanders to be a local disease, one 

 confined to the membrane lining the nose. Neither ought we to 

 marvel that Lafosse's doctrine should have become so universally 

 received and adopted as it was, not in France alone, but in Eng- 

 land as well, and by veterinarians of the greatest repute too, by 

 (among others) St. Bel, the first Professor of the London Veterinary 

 College, seeing that it had already received the stamp of approba- 

 tion of the Royal Academy of Medicine at Paris. And in order 

 to perpetuate so valuable a discovery — for it really was a valuable 

 one, and especially when compared with the notions entertained 

 concernino- the seat of glanders antecedent to Lafosse's time — 

 Lafosse's son exerted all his energy in defence of it, against any 

 attacks on the part of those who had the boldness to call its truth 



