ACUTE GLANDERS IN THE HUMAN SUBJECT. 351 
Since the recovery of my patient, my friend Dr. S. Edwards 
has mentioned to me a somewhat similar case, which occurred 
some years ago in Edinburgh, of a man who was attacked 
with all the worst constitutional symptoms of acute glanders, 
shortly after he had passed some time in the neighbourhood 
of horses so diseased, but had taken especial care not to 
approach any of them. The man died. 
Among the cases reported in the number of the Association 
Journal , already mentioned, there is one extracted from the 
Gazette des Uopitaux , Dec. 14th, 1852, of a man who died of 
acute glanders ; and the only proven fact in the history 
was, that he had lain in a room over a stable, but had not 
entered the stable itself, nor come in contact with the 
animals. 
Dr. Mackenzie threw out to me the suggestion, that the 
obstinate affections of the throat and fauces, ulceration of 
the palate, destruction of the nasal bones, & c., which we 
often see occurring in the persons of ostlers, stablemen, 
jockeys, &c., and which are generally attributed to syphilis 
(an opinion which, by the bye, the sexually dissolute lives of 
this class of persons would tend strongly to confirm), may 
sometimes be due to the infection of the poison of glanders ; 
and that, in fact, such cases are instances of chronic equinia, 
running a slow but destructive course. This idea appears 
worthy our consideration ; and the following case (also from 
the Association Journal of the same date) lends weight to it. 
It is related by Dr. Tessier, of Lyons. A woman was ad- 
mitted into the Hotel Dieu at Lyons, presenting obscure but 
alarming symptoms, which, just before her death, were sus- 
pected to depend on the contagion of glanders. It was 
stated, however, she had had syphilis two years previously. 
The post-mortem revealed twenty-seven abscesses, two of them 
gangrenous ; the pituitary membrane presented granular 
erosions infiltrated with pus, although there had been no 
discharge from the nostrils during her illness ; the glands of 
the intestines were healthy, and the sexual organs showed no 
traces of having been affected with syphilis. The woman 
said she had never come into contact with horses, and had 
no transactions with grooms or coachmen. 
hi. Predisposition. — Dr. R. Williams says, 66 the farci- 
nomatous poison, like many other animal poisons, does not 
infect all who may be in contact with it, but requires some 
peculiarity in the constitution, or rather predisposing cir- 
cumstances, to produce the disease. In general, the parties 
who have contracted glanders have been of intemperate 
habits, or of indifferent health, at the time of their falling ill 
