Annual  Report  for  1910  of  Royal  Veterinary  College.  293 
Glanders. 
The  following  Table  shows  the  number  of  outbreaks  and 
the  number  of  individual  cases  of  this  disease  during  the  past 
seven  years  : — 
Year 
Outbreaks 
Animals  attacked 
1904 
1,529 
2,658 
1905 
1,214 
2,068 
1906 
1,066 
2,012 
1907 
854 
1,921 
1908 
789 
2,433 
1909 
533 
1,753 
1910 
355 
1,022 
The  steady  decline  in  the  prevalence  of  the  disease  during 
the  last  six  years  must  be  regarded  as  very  satisfactory. 
During  the  period  1905-1907  the  reduction  in  the  number 
of  outbreaks  was  largely  due  to  voluntary  efforts  on  the  part 
of  the  owners  of  many  of  the  large  studs  of  railway  and 
omnibus  horses  in  London  to  eradicate  the  disease  from  their 
stables  by  systematically  applying  the  mallein  test  to  horses 
known  or  reasonably  suspected  to  have  been  exposed  to 
contagion,  and  isolating  or  destroying  those  that  reacted.  The 
marked  progress  made  during  the  past  two  years  must  be  put 
to  the  credit  of  the  new  Glanders  Order  which  came  into 
force  on  January  1,  1908.  This  Order  indirectly  enables 
local  authorities  to  enforce  the  mallein  test,  since  it  gives  them 
power  to  place  restrictions  on  the  movement  of  every  horse  in 
any  stable  in  which  a case  of  glanders  has  recently  occurred, 
and  to  maintain  these  restrictions  until  the  mallein  test  has 
proved  that  none  of  them  is  diseased.  It  also  encourages 
notification  and  employment  of  the  mallein  test  by  allowing 
moderate  compensation  for  every  horse  slaughtered  by  the 
local  authority  in  consequence  of  a reaction  to  mallein  and 
proved  by  post-mortem  examination  to  have  been  actually 
glandered,  and  full  compensation  when  a horse  so  slaughtered 
shows  no  evidence  of  disease  on  post-mortem  examination. 
The  Order,  in  fact,  enforces  the  method  of  dealing  with  out- 
breaks which  a good  many  owners  had  adopted  voluntarily. 
It  must  be  acknowledged  that  even  under  the  old  system 
there  might  have  been  some  reduction  in  the  number  of  out- 
breaks during  the  last  two  years  owing  to  the  dispersal  of 
many  studs  of  cab-horses,  and  the  diminishing  size  of  most 
of  the  tramway  and  omnibus  studs.  The  horse  population  of 
London  and  other  large  cities  is,  however,  still  large  enough 
to  provide  plenty  of  scope  for  the  activity  of  the  glanders 
bacillus,  and  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  the  present  com- 
paratively favourable  position  with  regard  to  this  disease  is 
mainly  due  to  the  check  which  the  existing  Order  placed  on 
the  sale  of  suspected  horses.  Indeed  it  may  be  questioned 
