Acute Glanders. 703 



Acute glanders, which usually develops from the chronic 

 form in horses, but frequently appears primarily in mules and 

 asses is characterized by rapidly aggravated symptoms of a 

 general acute infection. Attended with sudden elevation of 

 temperature and other febrile symptoms large numbers, of 

 fresh glanders nodes and their consequent ulcers appear in the 

 course of a few days, on any portion of the body, but particularly 

 in the nose and under the skin. The nasal mucous membrane 

 throughout its extent, may, in the course of 2 to 3 days, become 

 thickly studded with nodules and ulcers; coincident with this 

 condition is a profuse and often bloody nasal discharge; the 

 respiration becomes wheezing as a result of the swollen nasal 

 mucous membranes and of the submucous connective tissue, 

 while the submaxillary glands become larger and sensitive. 



Simultaneously Avith the appearance of these conditions 

 acute edematous swellings with nodes or farcy buds in the sur- 

 rounding cutis and subcutaneous tissue make their appearance ; 

 the nodes soon undergo softening, the resulting ulcers become 

 confluent, producing extensive discolored, ulcerating surfaces. 

 The superficial lymph glands undergo acute swelling and, in 

 some instances, suppuration. 



In the meantime the animals, in a constant condition of 

 fever, emaciate rapidly, respiration becomes labored, and pulse 

 accelerated and small ; finally diarrhea sets in, whereupon death 

 usually follows in the course of the second or third week of 

 the acute affection. -^ 



. Course. The course of this disease may be extremely 

 variable, extending over a few weeks or over several years 

 (DieckerhofP was able to trace the course of one case back for 

 seven years while Petrowsky reports a case of six years' stand- 

 ing). In the course of the disease, which is usually chronic 

 in character, acute exacerbations alternate with periods of 

 subsidence or of apparent complete arrest of the morbid 

 process'; near the end, however, the chronic cases usually as- 

 sume an acute character and terminate with the symptoms 

 above described. In rare cases the fatal termination is the 

 result of gradual exhaustion or of a sudden pulmonary hemor- 

 rhage. The temperature elevations that are occasionally ob- 

 served in the course of the chronic disease, are usually due to 

 the development of fresh glanderous foci, particularly in the 

 formation of glanderous lesions in the skin and subcutaneous 

 connective tissue. 



The acute exacerbations may occur without external cause 

 in the normal course of the disease, or they may appear as the 

 result of an intercurrent acute affection, as for instance an 

 influenza-catarrh of the upper air passages. In general the 

 disease develops more rapidly in animals in a poor state of 

 nutrition or in hard worked animals in which it assumes an 

 acute character at an earlier stage than under favorable con- 



