152 GLANDERS 



shown that the virus was contained chiefly in the firm compo- 

 nent parts of the infective material, that the fact of the infec- 

 tious nature of the disease was accepted. 



The theory of the spontaneous origin of glanders was 

 widely accepted in Germany. Sixty years ago it was believed 

 that glanders could be produced by the injection of pus, and 

 that strangles could develop into glanders. Glanders was 

 looked upon as a tubercular disease, scrofula, pyemia, diph- 

 theritis, general dyscrasia and cachexia respectively. Vir- 

 chow was the first to declare that the nodules of glanders were 

 independent, anatomical formations, which he placed under 

 the heading of granulation tumors. Gerlach was the strong 

 advocate for the exclusively infectious origin of the disease. 

 Leisering appears to have been the first to give an accurate 

 description of the lesions. 



The first biological researches into its nature were made 

 in 1868 by Zurn and Hallier, who found a fungus which they 

 believed to be its cause. In 1882, Loeffler and Schiitz suc- 

 ceeded in finding the bacterium of glanders, in cultivating it, 

 and in transmitting the disease to other animals by inoculating 

 them with pure cultures of the organism. Their researches 

 furnished the positive proof that glanders is a specific, infec- 

 tious disease, produced exclusively by Bacterium mallei. 



§ 130. Geographical distribution. Glanders exists in 

 the greater part of the civilized world. It is more common in 

 the temperate zones, where traffic in horses is active. In the 

 United States it was largely confined to the Northern States 

 before 1861, but it spread over the South in connection with 

 the civil war. It is said to have entered Mexico with the 

 American cavalry in 1847. Similarly, Portugal is said to have 

 been exempt until the invasion by Napoleon in 1797. Central 

 Hindoostan was said to be free from it until the war with 

 Afghanistan in 1878. In all these cases, the movements of 

 cavalry, artillery and of commissary trains were responsible 

 for the introduction of the disease into new territory. In our 

 own case the sale of horses and mules at the close of the civil 



