GLANDERS. 181 



course, and the membrane becomes ulcerated. The inflammation spreads on 

 either side down the septum, and the ulceration at length assumes that peculiar 

 chancrous form which characterises inflammation of the absorbents. Even then, 

 when the discharge becomes gluey, and sometimes after chancres have appeared, 

 the horse is apparently well. There are hundreds of glandered horses about the 

 country with not a sick one among them. For months or years this disease may 

 do no injury to the general health. The inflammation is purely local, and is only 

 recognised by the invariable accompaniment of inflammation and increased 

 secretion. Its neighbours fall around, but the disease affects not the animal 

 whence it came. At length a constitutional inflammation appears ; farcy is 

 established in its most horrible form, and death speedily closes the scene. 



What, then, is the cause of this insidious dreadful disease ? Although we 

 may be in a manner powerless as to the removal of the malady, yet if we can 

 trace its cause and manner of action, we may at least be able to do something in 

 the way of prevention. Much has been accomplished in this way. Glanders 

 does not commit one-tenth part of the ravages which it did thirty or forty years 

 ago, and, generally speaking, it is now only found as a. frequent and prevalent 

 disease where neglect, and filth, and want of ventilation exist. 



Glanders may be either bred in the horse, or communicated by contagion. 

 What we have farther 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 neces- 

 sary 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, pos- 

 sessed 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 glan- 

 ders. 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 for a few hours ; the consequence of this was, that some of them 

 were suffocated, and that all the rest were disembarked either glandered or 

 farcied." 



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

 but there are other and more powerful sources of mischief. The dung and the 

 urine are suffered to remain fermenting, and giving out injurious gases. In 

 many dark and ill-managed stables, a portion of the dung may be swept away, 

 but the urine lies for days at the bottom of the bed, the disgusting and putre- 

 fying nature of which is ill concealed by a little fresh straw which the lazy 

 horsekeeper scatters over the top. 



The stables of the gentleman are generally kept hot enough, and far too hot, 

 although, in many of them, a more rational mode of treatment is beginning to 

 be adopted ; but they are lofty and roomy, and the horses arc not too much 

 crowded together, and a most scrupulous regard is paid to cleanliness. Glanders 

 seldom prevail there. The stables of the farmer are ill-managed and filthy 

 enough, and the ordure and urine sometimes remain from week to week, until 

 the horse lies on a perfect dunghill. Glanders seldom prevail there ; for the 

 3ame carelessness which permits the filth to accumulate leaves many a cranny 

 for the wind to enter and sweep away the deleterious fumes from this badly- 

 roofed and unceiled place. 



The stables of the horse-dealer are hot enough ; but a principle of strict 

 cleanliness is enforced, for there must be nothing to offend the eye or the nose 



