374 LAWS RESPECTING GLANDERS. [BOOK II. 



that process in other respects ; but some prac- 

 titioners must be doing something, and many anxious 

 owners will not rest satisfied unless preventive mea- 

 sures be undertaken. 



As soon as the horse is suspected of glanders, 

 it should be kept separate from all others, and the 

 fumigation of marsh-mallows applied, as prescribed 

 at page 359, repeatedly ; a purgative or an altera- 

 tive ball may be given, according to the state of his 

 body, and the usual remedies as for a catarrh, con- 

 tinued for a week or ten days. If the disorder 

 does not lessen in this time, but the symptoms in- 

 crease in virulence, the horse should be destroyed; 

 but unfortunately for the healthy inmates this mea- 

 sure is not compulsory, no statute existing upon 

 the subject *. Besides which, disputes might arise 

 as to the precise nature of the symptoms, and the 

 executioner subject himself to heavy damages for 

 his temerity. Something of this sort happened 

 near Woburn, in Bedfordshire, early in the present 

 century, to a lately deceased statesman. A neigh- 

 bouring farmer having a horse in a state of con- 

 firmed glanders (in our opinion), persisted in keep- 

 ing it in an old shed on the road-side : his obstinacy 

 was highly provoking, and Mr. Whitbread, the 



* The common law, however, is fully sufficient to prevent the im- 

 proper exposure of animals afflicted with a contagious disease in 

 horse-markets, fairs, and other assemblages of cattle. A case of 

 this sort was adjudged at Guildhall, London, in February 1820, the 

 facts whereof were detailed in the Annals of Sporting for the month 

 following. 



