GLANDERS. 499 



day in the stable escaped infection. We may safely disregard 

 inhalation as a method of infection." 



2. By ingestion, namely, along with the food, drink, or objects 

 taken into the mouth, or touched by the organs of the mouth. 

 Nocard, Trasbot, Hunting and other leaders of veterinary opinion 

 strongly favour the ingestion theory, in support of which we have 

 the undeniable fact that the discharges of glanders are virulent, 

 and that they frequently contaminate objects which healthy horses 

 are liable to take into their mouths or lick, 



3. By inoculation of a wound or mucous membrane. When such 

 inoculation occurs, it is an almost certain means of communicating 

 the disease ; but " it is now uncommon. In the days when farcy 

 was treated, and wai^m fomentation of running sores and swollen 

 legs was adopted, it was not uncommon to see cases where wounds 

 were inoculated by sponges, etc., which had been used on diseased 

 horses " (Hunting). 



" Contrary to the case reported by Babes, Nocard failed to make 

 the bacilli of glanders penetrate the uninjured skin of donkeys and 

 guinea-pigs, by the inunction of a bacilli-containing ointment" 

 {Friedberger and Froliner). 



4. By transmission to the foetus, by means of the blood of the 

 dam (Friedberger and Frohner). 



5. I venture to suggest that flies are a probable means of trans- 

 mitting the disease, which is a point that experiment has not 

 cleared up. In some cases, horses which have open wounds, such 

 as those that have been recently castrated, appear to be much more 

 susceptible to the contagion than those whose skins are intact. 

 This is also a point which experiment can alone decide. 



Two other possible m^odes of infection are by copulation and by 

 drinking the milTc of an affected mare. 



TRANSMISSION OF GLANDERS FROM ONE HORSE TO 

 ANOTHER. — In considering this question we must bear in mind 

 that the disease can be communicated only by the bacilli of 

 glanders, and that, as far as we know, these organisms leave the 

 body of an infected animal only in diseased discharges such as 

 those from the lungs and from farcy buds. Experience amply 

 proves that horses which are thus clinically affected are a much 

 more dangerous source of contagion, than those which suffer from 

 the disease, but which have no outward symptoms. As it is im- 

 possible to say with certainty that any particular infected horse 

 does not at times discharge the microbes of glanders from its 

 nostrils or other passages, we must regard all horses which react 

 to mallein (p. 614), as probable centres of infection that ought 

 not to be allowed in the vicinity of healthy animals. 



32* 



