THE HISTORY OF GLANDERS. 
72 L 
main doctrines concerning which he has had the boldness to ques- 
tion the validity of, and in their place has introduced others, if 
not altogether novel in their character, at least, original in this 
country; which I shall, by quotation, endeavour to put my reader 
fully in the possession of. That opinion on which Coleman and his 
followers grounded their theory of the nature of glanders — the ex- 
istence of a poison in the hlood of glandered and farcied horses — 
Mr. Vines denounces as “ great error” (p. 2) : he believes neither 
in specific disease, nor in specific poison , nor in specific effects *. 
“ All the symptoms of disease which constitute glanders and farcy,” 
he avers, “ invariably depend upon the unhealthy state of the sys- 
tem, into which it is reduced or brought, and not, as is generally 
supposed, from (upon!) a specific poison contained in the blood” 
(p. 2). — “ In common inflammatory diseases, the system is always 
in a more or less healthy state ; but, on the contrary, when those 
symptoms of disease which constitute glanders or farcy occur, the 
system is always in a more or less unhealthy state ; and in proof 
of this I may advance, that the diseases of a common inflammatory 
nature, such as strangles, colds, inflammation of the lungs , grease, 
injuries, &c., from neglect or improper treatment, frequently de- 
generate into what is commonly termed glanders or farcy” (pp. 6-7) : 
so that — putting poison and specification altogether out of the ques- 
tion — glanders and farcy are nothing more than “ unhealthy dis- 
ease” of the “ mucous membrane which lines the nose, the substance 
of the lungs, the skin, and the cellular membrane underneath” (p. 4). 
This constitutes the groundwork of Mr. Vines’ doctrine. — On the 
subject of pulmonary glanders, Mr. Vines assures us that “ there 
are cases, both of glanders and farcy, where no alteration or dis- 
organization of these parts (the lungs), or any disease of the lungs, 
are to be found” (p. 11). — “ Glanders and farcy have hitherto 
been most commonly described and treated as distinct and separate 
diseases; whereas they are, if properly considered, only the un- 
healthy, and, not infrequently , the latter stages of common inflam- 
matory diseases of certain parts of the body, generally of the mu- 
cous membrane of the nostrils, cellular tissue, or substance of the 
lungs, the skin, or the connecting cellular membrane underneath ; 
and the inflammatory diseases which glanders and farcy most fre- 
quently follow are those termed strangles, true and false; com- 
mon colds ; distemper ; acute and subacute inflammation of the 
lungs; general or local dropsy ( anasarca or oedema); and the 
latter whether it occurs from general or local debility, conjointly 
with grease, or injuries of different parts of the body or not ; as, 
for instance, when a horse has been for a time labouring under one 
or other of these common inflammatory diseases, from the effect of 
* So far, coinciding in opinion with Morel. 
