124 THE HORSE. 



horse, as well as to the situation of the glands, the nature of the discharge 

 and character of the ulceration. 



If, after all, he is in doubt, an experiment may be resorted to, which 

 Avears indeed the appearance of cruelty, and which only the safety of a va- 

 luable animal, or of a whole team, can justify : he wih inoculate an ass or a 

 horse already condemned to the hounds with the matter discharged from 

 the nose. If the horse be glandered, the symptoms of glanders or farcy 

 will appear in the inoculated animal in the course of a few days. 



The history we have given of the symptoms of glanders will pretty 

 clearly point out its nature. It is an affection of the membrane of the 

 nose. Some say that it is the production of tubercles, or minute tumours 

 in the upper cells of the nose, which may long exist undetected, and hard 

 to be detected except by a scarcely perceptible running from the nostril, 

 caused by the slight irritation which they occasion. Tliese tubercles gra- 

 dually become more numerous ; they cluster together, suppurate, and break ; 

 and small ulcerations are formed. The ulcers discharge a poisonous matter, 

 which is absorbed and taken up by the neighbouring glands, and which, with 

 greater or less rapidity, vitiates the constitution of the animal, and is capa- 

 ble of communicating'the disease to others. Other surgeons content them- 

 selves with saying that it is an inflammation of the membrane of the nose, 

 which may assume an acute or chronic form, or in a very short time, or 

 exceedingly slowly, run on to ulceration. 



The malady proceeds as we have already described it, but, before its ter- 

 mination, becomes connected with farcy. Few horses die of glanders with- 

 out exhibiting some appearance of farcy ; and farcy, in its latter stages, is 

 almost invariably accompanied by glanders .-—^/le^/ are different forms or 

 stages of the same disease. 



There can be no doubt that the membrane of the nose is the original seat 

 of glanders ; that the disease is for a time purely local ; that the inflamma- 

 tion of the tubercles must proceed to suppuration before that matter is 

 formed on which the poisoning of the constitution depends; that the whole 

 circulation does at length become empoisoned ; and that the horse is de- 

 stroyed by the general irritation and disease produced. 



Glanders may be either bred in the horse, or communicated by conta- 

 gion. What we have further to remark on this malady will be arranged 

 under these two heads. 



Improper stable management we believe to be a far more frequent cause 

 of glanders than contagion. The air which is necessary to respiration is 

 changed and empoisoned in its passage through the lungs, and a fresh 

 supply is necessary for the support of life. That supply may be sufficient, 

 barely to support life, but not to prevent the vitiated air from again and 

 again passing to the lungs, and producing irritation 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 

 hatchways (we believe for a few hours only) ; the consequence of this was, 

 that some of them were suftbcated, and that all the rest were disembarked 

 either glandered or farcied*." 



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



* See Percival's excellent Lectures on the Veterinary Art, vol. iii. p. 455. 



