26 CASE OF ACUTE GLANDERS OF SPONTANEOUS ORIGIN. 
in a human being ; and yet every inquiry I have been able 
to make, convinces me that there is no room for belief that 
either inoculation or infection had anything to do with its 
production. And what tends to favour the notion that the 
disease in this case had spontaneous origin, is the fact of its 
not being the only one of the kind on record. In 1848, Dr. 
Bourier related a case of farcy-glanders in a man who was 
known to have had no communication either with horses or 
any other source of contagion ; but which was disputed from 
the circumstance of the man being a lancer or cavalry soldier. 
The same year, an Irish surgeon, by name Frazer, published 
in the Dublin Medical Dress the case of Patrick Geary, who 
died of symptoms of glanders without ever having been 
exposed to glandered infection. In 1847, M. Trousseau 
published another similar instance in a woman who died in 
the hospital Necker under the most unequivocal symptoms 
of glanders, without ever having had any chance of conta- 
gious exposure; though, as her business was to card hair 
for mattresses coming from slaughter-houses, it was pre- 
sumed infection was conveyed in that manner. A similar 
case is given by M. Teissier, in his remarkable work, of a 
gardener, who died of symptoms of acute glanders without 
ever having had commerce with horses, or ever lived in a 
stable; though the author of it comes to the strange conclu- 
sion that the case was not glanders, but purulent diathesis . 
And it is but a few 7 days ago since M. Huzard met w 7 ith a 
case of the same kind, which, as he could not account for its 
production either by inoculation or infection, he explains by 
referring to a group of symptoms and lesions denotive 
of a special affection, indicative rather of the termination of 
certain typhoid and gangrenous diseases than of the name 
recently given to it, of acute glanders. 
All things considered, M. Teissier believes himself justified 
in coming to the conclusions — 
1st. That Adelaide James was certainly affected w ith acute 
glanders, in its specific and virulent form ; a fact the inocu- 
lation practised at the Veterinary School was of itself sufficient 
to demonstrate. 
2dly. That the disease arose spontaneously, since the most 
scrupulous inquiry failed to elicit the smallest presumable 
cause of contagion . — Gazette Medicate , 1852, No. 32. 
