GLANDERS— MALLEUS 419 



Glanders is nearly always introduced into a stable through, 

 an infected individual, usually a horse suffering from chronic 

 pulmonary glanders, and which shows no symptoms of either 

 nasal or skin glanders. From this animal it usually spreads 

 to the ones next adjacent or sometimes to animals farther 

 removed in other parts of the stable. When the horses are 

 permitted to drink out of a common trough or fed out of a 

 common crib, the infection spreads more rapidly than 

 under opposite conditions. It is a notorious fact that an 

 apparently sound horse may infect a large number of horses 

 with which it comes in direct or indirect contact. Dealers' 

 stables and livery barns may be more or less permanently 

 infected. Strange horses brought there to be fed or watered 

 are thus exposed to the infection. Public watering troughs 

 are particularly dangerous in this regard. The horse is not 

 as susceptible to glanders as the ass or the mule. In fact, 

 horses offer a remarkable resistance to infection, the disease 

 in -them usually assuming a chronic form, and sometimes 

 ending in recovery. In asses glanders usually takes an acute 

 course with rapid and fatal termination.' The mule in this 

 regard seems to stand between the two. Obviously anything 

 which will reduce the resistance of the horse, such as over- 

 work, poor food, exposure to weather, etc., will render 

 the animal more susceptible. 



Symptoms. — Following natural infection, weeks or months 

 may elapse before clinical symptoms appear, although during 

 this time the patient may show an occasional rise in tem- 

 perature. In not a few instances prominent clinical symptoms 

 never occur during' the life of the patient. 



The period ( of incubation is usually placed at two weeks. 



For convenience it is customary to classify glanders from a 

 clinical standpoint as: (a) Nasal glanders; (b) skin glanders; 1 

 (c) pulmonary glanders. In this connection it is well to bear 

 in mind, however, that any two or all three of these forms 

 may be combined. Further, it is very rare not to find pul- 

 monary glanders present either alone or associated with 

 skin and nasal lesions. 



1 Skin glanders was formerly known as farcy, which term is now practi- 

 cally obsolete, 



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