GLANDERS. 
645 
then, for the first time, by horses at the time of their entry in 
apparently perfect health ; in new, public and private stables, and 
on board of new ships*. And he said that the morbific agent was 
the poison the healthy inhabitants of such uncontaminated abodes 
themselves generated, by being shut up without due or proper 
ventilation. 
SMITH contended as strongly as Coleman for the origin of 
glanders independent of contagion, and admitted how frequently and 
commonly the disease broke out in foul and unventilated stables; 
but he ascribed the mischief to the consumption and consequent 
deficiency of pure air, and not to any specific poison. Coleman, 
however, had from the first suspected this cause himself, and im- 
mediately set about the investigation of it ; and the result of his 
inquiry was, that — to use his own emphatic language — “ the air 
of the closest alley in London was found to contain as much oxy- 
gen in proportion as the air that encompasses the hills of High- 
gate shewing him that there was no good ground for believing 
that the atmosphere of the close stable possessed less pure air 
than that out of doors; and serving to confirm him in his opinion 
of what was the real deleterious agent, which was the animal 
poison. 
Fourthly : that, as I observed before, Coleman’s introduction of 
ventilation into the stables of public and private establishments 
has been productive of incalculable benefit, admits of no question 
whatever: not only has it proved prophylactic against glanders 
and farcy, but against other diseases as well ; and were the pro- 
fession and the public indebted to him on no other account, the good 
arising from ventilation alone is sufficient to preserve his name, for 
many a year to come, in the records of veterinary science. 
What the Nature of this Miasm or Infection is — Whe- 
ther it be similar in its essence to the virus of glanders itself, or 
whether it simply be an irritant of that miasmatic description that 
empoisons the system, and breeds malignant disease somewhere, 
depending for the form in which it breaks out upon certain local 
susceptibilities, producing one disease in one part, another disease 
in another part, we have no direct or positive evidence to shew. 
Coleman was clearly of opinion that, though specific he considered 
“ the poison,” it was general in its operation : he not only ascribed 
glanders and farcy to its influence, but rabies t likewise, and also 
* Although some doubt has been cast by “an old artillery officer” on 
Coleman’s account of the Quiberon expedition (in the Veterinarian for July 
1840), yet has the fact of glanders having broken out on board of ship been 
attested by Mr. Mogford (in the Veterinarian for Aug. 1840), as well as by 
Smith. 
f On the occasion of the Professor being examined before a Committee of 
the House of Commons, touching the Bill to prevent the spreading of Canine 
