152 THB HORSB. 



of Europe undertook a series of experiments to determine the right be- 

 tween the existing parties. 



At the veterinary school at Alfort, and at the farm of I^amirault in 

 France, several hundred horses which had passed examination as sound 

 had placed among them glandered horses under various conditions. The 

 results of these experiments proved conclusively the contagious character 

 of the disease. 



Ktiologfy. The contagious nature of glanders, in no matter what 

 form it appears, being to-day definitely demonstrated, we can recognize 

 but one cause for all cases, and that is contagion by means of the specific 

 virus of the disease. 



In studying the writings of the old authors on glanders, and the works 

 of those authors who contested the contagious nature of the disease, we 

 find a large number of predisposing causes assigned as factors in the de- 

 velopment of the maladj\ 



While a virus from a case of glanders if inoculated into an animal of 

 the horse family will inevitably produce the disease, we find a vast differ- 

 ence, in the contagious activity of the products of different cases of 

 glanders. We find a great variation in the manner and rapidity of the 

 development of the disease in different individuals, and we find that the 

 contagion is much more apt to be carried to sound animals under certain 

 circumstances than it is under others. Only certain species of animals 

 are susceptible of contracting the disease, and while some of these con- 

 tract it as a general constitutional malady, in others it only develops as 

 a local sore. 



In acute glanders the contagion is found in its most virulent form, as 

 is shown by the inevitable inaction of susceptible animals inoculated with 

 the disease; while the discharge from chronic glanders and farcy may at 

 times be inoculated with a negative result; again, in acute glanders, as 

 we have a free discharge, a much greater quantity of virus-containing 

 matter is scattered in the nei^jhborhood of an infected horse to serve as a 

 contagion to others than is found in the small amount of discharge of 

 the chronic cases. 



The chances of contagion are much greater when sound horses, asses, 

 or mules are placed in the immediate neighborhood of glandered horses 

 drink from the same bucket, stand in the next stall, or are fed from the 

 same bales of hay or straw which have been impregnated by the saliva 

 and soiled by the discharge of sick animals. The contagion must term- 

 inate by direct contact of the discharges of a glandered animal with the 



