418 CHRONIC INFECTIOUS DISEASES 



erate and form ulcers in the mucous membranes, skin, and 

 internal organs, especially the lungs. The disease occasion- 

 ally attacks man and carnivorous animals.. Sheep and goats 

 may be inoculated artificially. t 



Occurrence. — Glanders is generally distributed throughout 

 the world. It is commonest in cities or on the ranges where 

 large numbers of horses are congregated together, giving it 

 greater opportunity for spread. In the United States it is 

 especially common in the larger cities, and has occurred on 

 the ranges in the Northwest. As glanders is a local disease 

 in its incipient stages, presenting no clinical symptoms, and 

 usually takes a chronic course, horse owners and persons 

 ignorant of its character not only resist efforts to eradicate 

 the disease but disregard its contagious character. It is not 

 uncommon in the United States to find glandered horses 

 housed, fed, watered, and even worked with healthy horses. 

 Through this neglect glanders is probably more wide-spread 

 in this than in any other country in the world. Scandinavia 

 and Australia are free from it. 



Etiology. — Glanders is due to the Bacillus mallei, a straight 

 or slightly curved, aerobic bacillus, which has a characteristic 

 growth on potatoes and is essentially an obligatory parasite. 



Natural Infection. — Susceptible animals are infected with 

 glanders : (a) Through the digestive tract with the food and 

 water which has been contaminated with the discharges 

 (nasal, farcy-bud) or more rarely with manure and urine 

 of glandered animals. (6) Through skin wounds. Infection 

 through skin wounds is very rare. It may follow the use of 

 an infected harness which rubs and chafes the skin, (c) 

 Through the respiratory tract. It is exceedingly uncommon 

 for glanders to be transmitted in this way, especially if the 

 mucous membranes are intact. The inhalation of the moist 

 spray coughed or sneezed out by a glandered patient is not a 

 common occurrence; in the dry state the glanders bacilli 

 have a very low virulency. At any rate, primary nasal and 

 lung glanders are exceedingly rare forms, (d) By the act 

 of coitus. Occasionally instances of transmission of the 

 disease from an infected stallion to a mare through copulation 

 are recorded. 



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