GLANDERS. 



133 



ing, it is now only found as a frequent and prevalent disease where neglect, and filth, 

 and want of ventilation exist. 



Glanders may be either bred in the horse, or communicated by contagion. What 

 we have farther to remark on tliis malady will be arranged under these two heads. 



Improper stable management we believe to be a far more trequent cause of glan- 

 ders than contagion. The air which is necessary to respiration is changed and em- 

 poisoned in its passage through the lungs, and a fresti supply is necessary for the 

 support of life. That supply may be suthcient barely to support life, but not to pre- 

 vent the vitiated air from again and again passing to the lungs, and producing irrita 

 tion and disease. The membrane of the nose, possessed of extreme sensibility for the 

 purposes of smell, is easily irritated by this poison, and close and ill-ventilated stables 

 oftenest witness the ravages of glanders. Professor Coleman relates a case which 

 proves to demonstration the rapid and fatal agency of this cause. " In the expedition 

 to Quiberon, the horses had not been long on board the transports before it became 

 necessary to shut down the hatchw"ays for a few hours; the consequence of this was, 

 that some of them were suffocated, and that all the rest were disembarked either 

 glandered or farcied." 



In a close stable, the air is not only poisoned by being repeatedly breathed, but 

 there are other and more powerful sources of mischiel". The dung and the urine are 

 suffered to remain ferarenting, and giving out injurious gases. In many dark and 

 ill-managed stables, a portion of the dung may be swept away, but the urine lies 

 for days at the bottom of the bed, the disgusting and putrefying nature of which is 

 ill-concealed by a little fresh sti-aw which the lazy horsekeeper scatters over the top. 



The stables of the gentleman are generally kept hot enoutrh, and far too hot, 

 although, in many of themj a more rational mode of treatment is beginning to be 

 adopted ; but they are lofty and roomy, and the horses are not too nmch crowded 

 together, and a most scrupulous regard is paid to cleanliness. Glanders seldom pre- 

 vail there. The stables of the farmer are ill-managed and filthy enough, and the 

 ordure and urine sometimes remain from week to week, until the horse lies on a per- 

 fect dunghill. Glanders seldom prevail there ; for the same carelessness which per- 

 mits the filth to accumulate leaves many a cranny for the wind to enter and sweep 

 away the deleterious fumes from this badly-roofed and unceiled place. 



The stables of the horse-dealer are hot enough ; but a principle of strict cleanliness 

 is enforced, for there must be nothing to offend the eye or the nose of the customer, 

 and there glanders are seldom found ; but if the stables of many of our post-horses, 

 and of those employed on our canals, are examined, almost too low for a tall horse 

 to stand upright in them — too dark for the accumulation of filth to be perceived — too 

 far from the eye of the master — ill-drained and ill-paved — and governed by a false 

 principle of economy, which begrudges the labour of the man, and the cleanliness 

 and comfort of the animal ; these will be the very hotbeds of the disease, and in 

 many of these establishments it is an almost constant resident. 



Glanders may be produced by anj'thing that injures^ or for a length of time acts 

 upon and weakens, the vital energy of this membrane. They have been known to 

 follow a fracture of the bones of the nose. They have been the* consequence of 

 violent catarrh, and particularly the long-continued discharge from the nostrils, of 

 which we have spoken. They have been produced by thd injection of stimulating 

 and acrid substances up the nostril. Everything that weakens the constitution gen- 

 erally will lead to glanders. It is not only from bad stable management, but from the 

 hardships which they endure, and the exhausted state of their constitution, that post 

 and machine horses are so subject to glanders ; and there is scarcely an inflammatory 

 disease to which the horse is subject that is not occasionally wound up and terminated 

 by the appearance of glanders. 



Among the causes of glanders is want of regular exercise. The connexion, 

 although not evident at first glance, is too certain. When a horse has been worked 

 with peculiar severity, and is become out of spirits, and falls away in flesh, and 

 refuses to eat, a little rest and a few mashes would make all right again ; but the 

 groom plies him with cordials, and adds fuel to fire, and aggravates the state of fever 

 tl»at has commenced. What is the necessary consequence of this? The weakest 

 goes to th« ^vall, and either the lungs or the feet, or this membrane — that of the sose 

 ]i 



