486 G-ENERAL DISEASES. 



We have the fact that horses in the same stable as one or more 

 glandered animals, have frequently contracted the disease, although 

 their stalls were at a " considerable distance from those of the 

 affected ones, and no apparent possibility existed of the disease 

 having been communicated by contact, either directly or indirectly. 

 If the air of a stable carried infection diffused through it, we 

 should certainly have found glanders more commonly amongs: 

 horse-keepers. Not many years ago, there were stables in which 

 every horse was glandered, and yet the human tenants who spent 

 twelve hours a day in the stable escaped' infection. We may safely 

 disregard inhalation as a method of infection. 



2. By ingestion, namely, along with the food, drink, or objects 

 taken into the mouth, or touched by the organs of the mouth. 

 Leaders of veterinary opinion strongly favour the ingestion theory, 

 supported by the undeniable fact that the discharges of glanders 

 are virulent, and that they frequently contaminate objects which 

 healthy horses are liable to take into their mouths or lick. 



3. By inoculation of a wound or mucous membrane. When 

 such inoculation occurs, it is an almost certain means of com- 

 rnunioating the disease ; but it is now uncommon. In the days 

 when farcy was treated, and warm fomentation of running sores 

 and swollen legs was adopted, it was not uncommon to see cases 

 where wounds were inoculated by sponges, etc., which had been 

 used on diseased horses. 



Contrary to the case reported by Babfes, Nocard failed to make 

 the bacilli of glanders penetrate the uninjured skin of donkeys and 

 guinea-pigs, by the inunction of a bacilli-containing ointment 

 {Friedberger and Frohner). 



i. By transmission to the foetus, by means of the blood of the 

 dam (Friedberger and Frohner). 



5. I venture to suggest that flies are a probable means of trans- 

 mitting the disease, which is a point that experiment has not 

 cleared up. In some cases, horses which have open wounds, such 

 as those that have been recently castrated, appear to be much 

 more susceptible to the contagion than those whose skins are 

 intact. This is also a point which experiment can alone decide. 



Two other possible modes of infection are by copulation and by 

 drinking the milk of an affected mare. 



TRANSMISSION OF GLANDERS FROM ONE HORSE TO 

 ANOTHER. — In considering this question bear in mind that the 

 disease can be communicated only by the bacilli of glanders, and 

 that, as far as is known, these organisms leave the body of an in- 

 fected animal only in diseased discharges such as those from the 

 lungs and from farcy buds. Experience amply proves that horses 



