110 GLANDERS 
History. Glanders is reported to have been known long before the 
Christian Era. The name malleus was given to it by Aristotle. The 
theory of the contagiousness of glanders was much doubted at the 
beginning of the last century. The view taken by the veterinarians at 
the Alfort Veterinary College was that glanders might arise spon- 
taneously from an attack of strangles. This view was far more widely 
accepted than the theory of its contagiousness, which was stoutly sup- 
ported by the authorities at the Veterinary College of Lyons. It was 
not until Rayer (1837) had demonstrated the transmissibility of 
glanders to man, and Chauveau (1868) had shown that the virus was 
contained chiefly in the firm component parts of the infective material, 
that the fact of the infectious nature of the disease was accepted. 
The theory of the spontaneous ‘origin of glanders was widely 
accepted in Germany. It was believed that glanders could be pro- 
duced by the injection of pus, and that strangles could develop into 
glanders. Glanders was looked upon as a tubercular disease, scrofula, 
pyemia, diphtheritis, general dyscrasia and cachexia respectively. 
Virchow was the first to declare that the nodules of glanders were 
independent, anatomical formations, which he placed under the head- 
ing of granulation tumors. Gerlach was the strong advocate tor the 
exclusively infectious origin of the disease. Leisering appears to have 
been the first to give an accurate description of the lesions. 
The first biological researches into its nature were made in 1868 by 
Zurn and Hallier, who found a fungus which they believed to be its 
cause. In 1882, Loeffler and Schiitz succeeded in finding the bac- 
terium of glanders, in cultivating it, and in transmitting the disease 
to other animals by inoculating them with pure cultures of the 
organism. Their researches furnished the positive proof that 
glanders is a specific, infectious disease, produced exclusively by 
Bacterium mallet. 
Geographical distribution. Glanders exists in the greater part of 
the civilized world. It is more common in the temperate zones, where 
traffic in horses is active. In the United States it was largely con- 
fined to the Northern States before 1861, but it spread over the South 
in connection with the civil war. It is said to have entered Mexico 
with the American cavalry in 1847. Similarly, Portugal is said to 
have been exempt until the invasion by Napoleon in 1797. Central 
Hindoostan was said to be free from it until the war with Afghanistan 
in 1878. In all these cases, the movements of cavalry, artillery and 
of commissary trains were responsible for the introduction of the 
