GLANDERS. X35 



and no bad consequence has followed ; but others have been speedily infected. Tho 

 glanderous matter must come in contact with a wound, or fall on some membrane, 

 thin and delicate, like that of the nose, and throuofh which it may be absorbed. It 

 is easy, then, accustomed as horses are to be crowded together, and to recognise each 

 other by the smell — eating out of the same manger, and drinking from the same pail — 

 to imagine that the disease may be very readily communicated. One horse has passed 

 another when he was in the act of snorting, and has become glandered. Some fillies 

 have received the infection from the matter blown by the wind across a lane, when a 

 glandered horse, in the opposite field, has claimed acquaintance by neighing or snort- 

 ing. It is almost impossible for an infected horse to remain long in a stable with 

 others without irreparable mischief. 



If some persons underrate the danger, it is because the disease may remain unre- 

 cognised in the infected horse for some months, or even years, and therefore, when it 

 appears, it is attributed to other causes, or to after inoculation. No glandered horse 

 should be employed on any farm, nor should a glandered horse be permitted to work 

 on any road, or even to pasture on any field. Mischief may be so easily and exten- 

 sively effected, that the public interest demands that every infected animal should be 

 summarily destroyed, or given over for experiment to a veterinary surgeon, or recog- 

 nised veterinary establishment. 



There are a few instances of the spontaneous cure of chronic glanders. The dis- 

 charge has existed for a considerable time. At length it has gradually diminished, 

 and has ceased ; and this has occurred under every kind of treatment, and without 

 any medical treatment : but in the majority of these supposed cases, the matter was 

 only pent up for a while, and then, bursting from its confinement, it flowed again in 

 double quantity : or, if glanders have not re-appeared, the horse, in eighteen or twenty- 

 four months, has become farcied, or consumptive, and died. These supposed cures 

 are few and far between, and are to be regarded with much suspicion. 



As for medicine, there is scarcely a drug to which a fair trial has not been given, 

 and many of them have had a temporary reputation; but they have passed away, one 

 after the other, and are no longer heard of. The blue vitriol and the Spanish-fly have 

 held out longest; and in a ft'w cases, either nature or these medicines have done 

 wonders, but in the majority of instances they have palpably failed. The diniodide 

 of copper has lately acquired some reputation. It lias been of great service in cases 

 of farcy, but it is not to be depended upon in glanders. 



Where the life of a valuable horse is at stake, and the owner adopts every precau- 

 tion to prevent infection, he may subject the horse to medical treatment; but everv 

 humane man will indignantly oiiject to the slitting of the nostril, and the scraping of 

 the cartilage, and searing of tlie gland, and firing of the frontal and nasal bones, and 

 to those injections of mustard and capsicum, corrosive sublimate and vitriol, by which 

 the horse has been tortured, and the practitioner disgraced. At the veterinary school, 

 and by veterinary surgeons, it will be most desirable that every experiment should be 

 tried to discover a remedy for this pest ; but. in ordinary instances, he is not faithful 

 to his own interest, or tliat of liis neighbours, who does not remove the possibility of 

 danger in the most summary wa}^. 



If, however, remedial measures are resorted to, a pure atmosphere is that which 

 should first be tried. Glanders is the peculiar disease of the stabled horse, and the 

 preparation for, or the foundation of a cure, must consist in the perfect removal of 

 every exciting cause of the malady. The horse must breathe a cool and pure atmo- 

 sphere, and he must be turned out, or placed in a situation equivalent to it. 



A salt marsh is, above all others, the situation for this experiment: but there is 

 much caution required. No sound horse must be in the same pasture, or a neir^nno^-^T- 

 ing one. The palings or the gates may receive a portion of tne matter, wnicn may 

 harden upon them, and, many a month afterwards, be a source of mischief — nay, the 

 virus may cling about the very herbage, and empoison it. Cattle and sheep should 

 not be trusted with a glandered horse ; for the experiments are not sufficiently numer- 

 ous or decided as to the exemption of these animals from the contagion of glanders. 



Supposing that glanders have made their appearance in the stables of a farmer, is 

 there any danger after he has removed or destroyed the infected horse ] Certainly 

 there is ; but not to the extent that is commonly supposed. There is no necessity foi 



