270 VETEKINABY MEDICINE AND SURGERY. 



Etiology. — The primary cause of glanders is not clearly understood. 

 Old age, hard, debilitating work, bad food, miasmatic surroundings, illy 

 ventilated and badly drained stables, overcrowding in confined quarters 

 seem to favor the development of the poison. The discharges from the 

 nose of a glandered horse will infect others, and as the poison is commu- 

 nicable to men, great care must be taken in suspected cases to avoid it. 



Symptoms. — Glanders, as most commonly met with, presents the 

 following signs : — The horse is generally more or less off its feed, has a 

 tendency to shiver on the slightest cold; its coat is rough and unhealthy, 

 " has lost the bloom of health;" it may or may not cough; the appetite 

 is capricious; and perspiration is induced by slight exertion. There is a 

 discharge of a starchy or gluey material from one or both nostrils; the 

 discharge is often tinged with blood. In some instances recurrent 

 hemorrhage from the nostril is a premonitory sign of glanders. The 

 mucous membranes are pale and unhealthy, and that covering the nasal 

 chamber, from which the discharge issues, is studded over with deep, pit- 

 like ulcers. The ulcers are characteristic, being excavated, as if cut with 

 a punch, but after a time they become ragged at their edges, irregular, 

 enlarged in all directions, and confluent. The spaces between the ulcers 

 are covered with hard yellowish pimples, which soon ulcerate. The eye 

 of the affected side is weak, and looks smaller than its fellow, and an 

 unhealthy discharge often issues from it over the face. The submaxil- 

 lary lymphatics of the same side enlarge and form a tumor — sometimes 

 single, sometimes lobulated — which is more or less firmly adherent to the 

 surrounding tissues. 



Acute Glanders appears suddenly with rigors more or less marked, 

 the temperature of the animal is sometimes as high as 106° to 109°, the 

 breathing is accelerated, the pulse feeble, rapid, and even dicrotonous, 

 the heart's action palpitating and accompanied by metallic tinkling, the 

 appetite fails, the joituitary membrane, at first of a dark copper color, 

 with patches of ecchymosis of a dark-red hue, becomes purj)le, and the 

 patches are rapidly converted into pit-like ragged-edged ulcers, from 

 which issues a copious sanious discharge. The submaxillary lymphatic 

 glands enlarge. Other lymphatic glands inflame, enlarge, suppurate, 

 burst, and expose raw, unhealthy-looking sores, from which issues a more 

 or less ichorous and irritating purulent material. The eyes are weak, 

 and a discharge issues fi'om them; the nostrils are often swollen. The 

 breathing is hurried, irregular, and impeded by the swelling of the nos- 



