GrLAA'DEES. 495 



36° and 81° F. " Loftier failed to obtain cultures on infusions 

 of hay, straw, or horse dung. As a rule complete drying of the 

 bacilli of glanders destroys their virulence in about a week. Ac- 

 cording to the experiments of Loftier, a period of three months is 

 the longest time the dried bacilli retain their activity. Cadeac 

 and Malet state that the bacilli can be killed only by gradual 

 drying; that they resist jDutrefaction from fourteen to twenty-four 

 days; and that, when mixed with water, they continue virulent 

 from fifteen to twenty days. Bacilli which are not dried, cannot 

 live outside the animal body for longer than four months. Lofiier 

 therefore considers that four months is the maximum period for 

 the infectious material to retain its virulence, and that the pub- 

 lished reports about stables remaining infectious for many months, 

 and even years, are erroneous. . . . For practical purposes we may 

 say that a 1 to 1,000 solution of corrosive sublimate, or a 5 per 

 cent, solution of creolin or carbolic acid, is sufficient for disin- 

 fection " (Friedberger and Frohner). According to Sherrington, 

 the microbes of glanders are destroyed by sunlight in about three 

 days. 



' GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION.— Glanders is well distri- 

 buted over the four continents of the world; but owing to the 

 wise enforcement of strict quarantine regulations, it is absent from, 

 the Australian Colonies. In India, it is common among horses 

 owned by natives, whose ideas of preventive medicine are not far 

 advanced. Although it is seldom found in England among race- 

 horses, hunters, carriage horses, and agricultural animals ; it is 

 prevalent to a very large extent among the commercial horses of 

 London, Glasgow, and other large towns of this country ; the chief 

 cause being the unrestricted importation of glandered horses from 

 America and other largely-infected countries. After the Spanish- 

 American war, great numbers of glandered horses were imported 

 into the Southern States from Cuba, which was a hot-bed of that 

 disease, with a disastrous result which might have been easily pre- 

 vented (p. 502). 



PERIOD OF INCUBATION.— This period is stated by Cadeac 

 to vary from three to nine days. The period of apparent latency 

 is much longer, and may extend to months, if not years. Such 

 instances of seemingly prolonged incubation are due to the fact 

 that the disease is confined to the lungs and other organs hidden 

 from view. As a rule, the longer the period of incubation, the 

 less virulent will be the attack. It is probable that glanders does 

 not take longer than eight days to establish itself in the lungs. 



