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REFLECTIONS ON GLANDERS. 
By Mr. James Turner, V.S., Regent Street. 
VETERINARY medicine and surgery may be said to have been 
prosecuted as a science in Great Britain for somewhat more than 
half a century, and, without vain boasting it may be added, with 
signal success. The government (convinced of its efficiency both 
in theory and practice) has recently elevated the practitioners into 
a legalized professional body by grant of the Royal Charter. 
Therefore every facility is now offered to the honourable and 
legitimate practitioner, both in and out of the army, to take and 
maintain his proper position in society as a professional man, 
and all tractable maladies and manageable injuries of the inferior 
animals are now daily and hourly promptly aided by the head and 
hand of science. Out of a long catalogue of diseases to which 
our chief quadruped, the horse, is subject, it is a proud triumph to 
reflect that the skill of the modern veterinarian, when summoned 
at their first outbreak, is competent to rid them of all their terrors, 
with but few lamentable exceptions. I am now about to allude to 
the opprobria of our profession, viz a list of maladies, not numerous 
but terrific in their character, as glanders, farcy, rabies, &c. 
Down to the present hour, no honest veterinary surgeon in the 
united kingdom, or of the continent of Europe, pretends to possess 
a specific for the direful scourge of glanders; and the horses of 
her Majesty’s cavalry, so condemned, are consigned to the slaugh- 
ter-house now, as they were wont to be some sixty years ago ; 
but it is my purpose to contend that a crisis has now arrived, — the 
cup of science has been greatly replenished of late, particularly 
as regards abnormal structure of the animal body. Through the 
talents and researches of several able men of our own country, 
combined with most searching and unwearied experiments of the 
continental veterinarians, particularly the French, its true character 
is at length understood, though, we must humbly confess, it still 
resists all the vast accessions of the modern materia medica. 
The cure must be sought for, and will ultimately be obtained, 
through other sources, viz. those of an experimental character. 
Government most liberally extended important aid to our alma 
mater in her infancy. We have grown to manhood, and have 
long since run alone ; and I would now humbly submit to the 
legislature the propriety of erecting a National Animal Infirmary 
in some isolated locality, not remote from the metropolis, for the 
sole purpose of experimental treatment, unique operations, &c. 
