GLANDERS. 121 



NASAL GLEET, OR DISCHARGE FROM THE NOSE. 



The most frequent disease of this cavity is an increased and thicker 

 discharge of fluid from the nose. It may be properly called a Nasal 

 Gleet. There is a constant secretion of fluid to lubricate and moisten 

 the membrane that lines the cavity of the nose, which, under catarrh or cold, 

 is increased in quantity, and altered in appearance and consistence. 

 This will properly belong to our account of catarrh or cold ; but that 

 to which we immediately refer is a continued and oftentimes profuse dis- 

 charge when every symptom of catarrh and fever has passed away ; an 

 almost incredible quantity of thickened mucus, of different colours : — if the 

 horse is at grass, almost as green as the food on which he lives; — or, if he 

 be stabled, white, straw-coloured, brown, or even bloody, and sometimes 

 evidently mingled with matter or pus; and either constantly running, or 

 snorted out in masses many times in the day ; teasing the horse, and a per- 

 fect nuisance in the stable, and to the rider. We have known this con- 

 tinue several months, and eventually destroy the horse. 



If the discharge be not offensive to the smell, nor mixed with any mat- 

 ter, it is probably merely an increased and somewhat vitiated secretion 

 from the cavities of the nose ; and, all fever having disappeared, will fre- 

 quently yield to small doses of blue vitriol, from one to two drachms, and 

 given twice in the day. If fever or cough remain, the cough medicine 

 which will hereafter be described must be combined with the tonic. If 

 the discharge be mingled with pus, and very offensive, the vegetable tonics, 

 gentian and ginger, may be added to the copper in doses of two drachms 

 of the former, and one of the latter; but there is then reason to apprehend 

 that the discharge will not be controlled, and will terminate in glanders. 

 Turning into a salt marsh will occasionally effect a cure, when both the 

 mineral and the vegetable tonics have failed. 



GLANDERS. 



The next and most formidable of all the diseases to which the horse is 

 subject, is Glanders. It is described by writers fifteen hundred years 

 ago, and it was then, and is now, not only a loathsome, but an incurable 

 disease; we shall therefore principally confine ourselves to the considera- 

 tion of its symptoms, nature, and causes, and prevention, and degree of 

 contagion, and these will afford too much matter of interest to the farmer. 



If we could obtain an authentic history of the glandered horse, we should 

 find that, in the majority of instances, if the disease were bred in him, he 

 had been dull, off his feed, losing flesh, and his coat staring ; and that these 

 appearances had for several weeks preceded the characteristic symptoms of 

 glanders. These symptoms, however, may lead to, or be the causes of 

 other diseases, or they may pass away, and the horse may return to perfect 

 health. That which would be considered as the earliest, and an unques- 

 tionable symptom of glanders, would be an increased discharge from one 

 or both nostrils ; different from the discharge of catarrh, because it is 

 usually lighter and clearer in its colour, and more glutinous or sticky. 

 When rubbed between the fingers it has, even in an early stage, a peculiar, 

 clammy, bird-limy feel. It is not discharged occasionally and in large 

 quantities, like the mucus of catarrh, but it is constantly running from the 

 nostril. 



It is a singular circumstance, for which no satisfactory account has yet 

 been given, that when one nostril alone is attacked, it is in a great ma- 

 jority of cases the near or lefl. M. Dupiiy, the director of the veterinar 



