162 THE DISEASES OF DOMESTIC ANIMALS. 



" I distinguisli glanders according to its nature ; as glanders 

 properly speaking, and glanders improperly so called." 



" True glanders is the discliarge which comes alone from the 

 pituitary membrane. It is not proper to speak of any other form of 

 glanders than this." 



" Every other disease than this is not glanders." 



1. " True glanders maybe distinguished as simple and complex." 



2. As primitive and secondary. 



3. As initiative, as confirmed, and as inveterate glanders. 

 Simple glanders is that which comes from the pituitary mem- 

 brane. 



Complex glanders is that which comes from the same, and the 

 trachea or the lungs at the same time. 



Primitive glanders comes independent of all other complications. 



Secondary glanders is that which follows on other diseases. 



As to its cause, Lafosse takes a most sensible position when he 

 says : " The primary causes of glanders are not known. Some per- 

 sons think that it is due to some acrid and acid material." 



The ens of the disease is to be sought in an inflammation of the 

 glands of the pituitary membrane which produces the discharge. 



He considered glanders curable in its early stages, which should 

 be treated after the manner of all inflammations. When the dis- 

 ease had become chronic it was incurable. 



So much for the ancient authors. 



Of modern English authors, Fleming and Williams are the best 

 kno^vn. 



In his " Yeterinary Police," Fleming speaks of glanders " as a 

 special diathesis peculiar to the equine species." 



Glanders is not a "diathesis." Diathesis is from the Greek 

 TiOrjfii, — to dispose / and the word means a peculiar condition of an 

 organism, predisposing it to certain diseases ; as scrofula disposes to 

 tuberculosis. We may speak of a glanders dyscrasia. It can not 

 logically be applied to that peculiarity of the different animal spe- 

 cies by which certain diseases originate in them primarily, or only 

 in them. We can not speak of a measles diathesis, or a rinderpest 

 diathesis, any more than a glanders diathesis. 



A diathesis is something inherited or produced. It is a weak- 

 ness causing a tendency to secondary complications. 



Fleming says again, " It has been grouj^ed with that class of dis- 

 eases termed ' granulomes,' and defined as a malady having a tend- 

 ency to the formation of granular cells and destructive processes." 



Here we see another error, which, had our author been person- 



