580 
ON THE COMMUNICABILITY OF GLANDERS 
It is true that it had not been positively asserted that persons who 
were in the habit of attending on glandered horses were liable to 
contract the disease, but such anomalous symptoms had been ob- 
served in them, that medical men had felt themselves called upon 
to publish a statement of their disease, as being extraordinary and 
curious facts. All the doubtful cases related by M. Rayer may 
be included in this category. It is true that they are incomplete ; 
but still there is so great a degree of resemblance existing between 
them, that no doubt can be entertained that they belong to the 
same disease. Medical men did not know that glanders was com- 
municable from the horse to the human being ; in fact, they knew 
little of the disease excepting its name, consequently they were un- 
able to characterise it, or assign it its proper place in the patholo- 
gical system. They only saw in it a very singular disease, nothing 
more. M. Barthelemy then proceeded to review all the symptoms 
observed in the case of Prost, and to compare them with those seen 
in horses ; and he concludes *, — “ that the disease having passed 
through all its stages in Prost, the lesions of the pituitary ought 
to have been as severe in this man as they are found to be in 
horses that have been destroyed ; but they were not.” 
Here, again, M. Barthelemy is wrong : he does not take into 
consideration the organic differences which exist between the horse 
and man, and which will or may modify the form under which the 
same disease manifests itself in these two beings. As to the ex- 
tent of the lesions in the nasal cavities of the human being, it is 
very trifling compared with that observed in horses that have died 
of glanders. This may arise from the capacity of the nasal cavities 
and their appendages being greater in the animal than in the hu- 
man being. 
Professor Velpeau, who had also carefully observed the case of 
Prost, peremptorily refuted all the objections urged by M. Barthe- 
lemy : the discussion was resumed on the 14th of March, and M. 
Barthelemy, still denying the existence of glanders, put the follow- 
ing question : — “ If the human being is liable to receive the virus 
of glanders, he must also be able to retain it in full energy, and ca- 
pable of communicating to another human being that which he has 
received from the horse : but is there one known instance of glanders 
having been communicated from one human being to another ? — 
Not.” 
The cases cited by Tavozzi may be contradicted ; but the death 
of the unfortunate Rocher proves how premature are the conclu- 
sions of M. Barthelemy ; and some animals which have since been 
inoculated with matter taken from a glandered man have developed 
* Bulletins de l’Academie de M^decine, tome i, p. 448. 
f Bulletins de l’Academiede Medecine, tome i, p. 472. 
