THE HISTORY OF GLANDERS. 
719 
acute coryza, the nasal discharge, especially while it continues 
clear and limpid, is acrid to that degree that it irritates and even 
excoriates the skin, clothing the doubling of the nostrils over which 
it flows 1 The facility with which horses, standing together in the 
same stable, catch the same catarrhal disorder , might lead us to pre- 
sume that the discharge, at least up to a certain period, harboured 
some contagious property. After all, these are but hints that we 
have thrown out ; and so far are we ourselves from regarding them 
as infallible, that now we are going to offer some further considera- 
tions apparently of a contradictory character.” 
“ Nevertheless, before we conclude, we shall frankly give our 
own opinion on the subject. According to our notions, glanders is 
a disease of the pituitary membrane — an abnormal secretory irrita- 
tation of it — either arising spontaneously or caused by contagion. 
The idiopathic disease may be primitive or consecutive to the in- 
ternal change, be it of the entire economy or of one of the principal 
systems, especially the respiratory. As for the different forms or 
modifications under which glanders appears, chronic and acute, 
pustulous and ulcerative , ecchymotic and gangrenous , these are but 
phases of endless variety, consequent on the conditions of indivi- 
duals and on extrinsic causes*.” 
Professor Sewell’s opinions on glanders — as they stood at 
least so far back as the year 1827-8 — will be found in an Intro- 
ductory Lecture delivered by him for that sessional year, at the 
Royal Veterinary College; which was by myself taken down in 
short hand, and afterwards published in the first volume of The 
Veterinarian. 1 here transcribe them, with some slight altera- 
tions of wording and arrangement! : — 
The Professor believes the lungs to be the original seat of 
glanders, and the affection of the nose to be secondary . He 
agrees with Dupuy in thinking that miliary tubercles constitute the 
original disease : and that these suppurate, and by coalescence 
form considerable abscesses in the lungs, the contents of which 
become discharged through the nose, and thus constitute glanders. 
In the early stage , even in this (tuberculous) condition of lung, 
Professor Sewell believes that many horses are recoverable. He 
has ascertained that matter taken from these suppurated tubercles 
(vomicce) will by inoculation produce glanders as surely as one 
(planted) potatoe will produce another. Asses inoculated with 
* Dictionnaire de Medecine, de Chirurgie, et de Hygeine V^terinaires, 1838. 
f In reply to a letter I wrote to the Professor in March 1844, submitting 
to him the statement I now introduce here, and requesting to be informed if this 
coincided with his present views, I received for answer — “ that he (the Pro- 
fessor) is confirmed by time and experience in his opinions and views which 
he expressed on the subject of glanders in his Introductory Lecture for 1827-8.” 
