330  Annual  Report  for  1909  of  Royal  Veterinary  College. 
between  the  decline  in  the  number  of  outbreaks,  and  the 
decline  in  the  number  of  animals  attacked  during  the  last 
four  years.  The  disparity  is,  without  doubt,  due  to  the 
increased  employment  of  mallein,  with  the  object  of  detecting 
cases  of  glanders  among  the  apparently  healthy  horses  known 
to  have  been  recently  exposed  to  risk  of  infection,  or,  in  other 
words,  the  “in-contact”  animals  in  what  are  known  to  be 
infected  studs.  For  many  years  after  the  discovery  ef  the 
valuable  diagnostic  properties  of  mallein,  its  use  was  generally 
restricted  to  the  horses  showing  outward  but  indecisive 
symptoms  of  glanders,  and  as  a rule  no  serioxis  attempt  was 
made  to  stamp  out  the  disease  from  an  infected  stud  by 
detecting  and  destroying  or  isolating  the  latent  cases  among 
the  apparently  healthy  animals.  The  effect  of  this  was  that 
when  a clinical  case  of  glanders  was  discovered  in  a stable, 
it  was  destroyed,  and  provided  none  of  the  other  horses 
showed  any  symptom  pointing  to  glanders  the  outbreak  was 
considered  to  be  at  an  end.  If  another  case  occurred,  even 
within  a short  interval,  it  figured  in  the  returns  as  a second 
outbreak,  and  so  on.  This  plan  of  dealing  with  outbreaks  was 
altered  by  the  Glanders  Order  of  1907,  which  came  into 
operation  on  January  1,  1908.  The  Order  gave  local  authori- 
ties power  to  detain  all  in-contact  horses  until  the  suspicion 
attaching  to  them  had  been  removed  by  the  negative  result 
of  a mallein  test,  and  to  destroy,  with  compensation,  all  such 
in-contact  horses  that  reacted.  It  was  foreseen  that  an 
immediate  result  of  this  new  policy  might  be  an  apparent 
increase  in  the  number  of  outbreaks  during  the  following 
year,  while  an  increase  in  the  number  of  cases  detected  and 
slaughtered  was  practically  certain,  and,  as  the  above  Table 
shows,  the  returns  for  1908  showed  a substantial  increase  in 
the  number  of  animals  attacked,  although  there  was  a slight 
reduction  in  the  number  of  outbreaks.  It  will  be  observed, 
however,  that  a decline  both  in  outbreaks  and  animals 
attacked  had  begun  in  1905,  and  that  must  be  set  down 
to  the  voluntary  adoption  by  a few  of  the  largest  horse- 
owners  in  London  of  the  plan  of  dealing  with  outbreaks  which 
could  not  be  enforced  by  local  authorities  till  the  beginning  of 
1908. 
The  figures  for  the  last  year  must  be  regarded  as  very 
satisfactory.  Compared  with  1906,  the  outbreaks  for  1908 
show  a reduction  of  nearly  50  per  cent.,  and  many  large  studs 
are  now  for  the  first  time  free  from  the  disease.  Figuratively 
speaking,  the  disease  is  being  hunted  into  a corner,  and, 
although  it  may  be  some  years  before  it  is  completely 
eradicated,  there  is  good  reason  to  hope  for  that  result  at  no 
very  distant  date. 
