45 
REFLECTIONS ON GLANDERS. 
By James Turner, V.S., Regent Street. 
[No. 2 of a series, continued from The Veterinarian for March 1845.] 
In my humble opinion, the greatest boon that has been conferred 
on veterinary science during the past year, 1845, is Mr. William 
Percivall’s work on Glanders and Farcy in the Horse. 
It appears that the great father of medicine himself, Hippocrates, 
upwards of two thousand years ago, pronounced the malady in- 
curable. Vegetius, in the fourth century, gave no better account; 
during the dark ages nothing was gleaned. Our earliest English 
writer, Leonard Mascal (1587), had no correct notions of glanders. 
The continental writers, particularly the French, subsequently con- 
tributed very largely. Professor Coleman commenced his career 
at the London Veterinary College about half a century ago, and 
soon found that all the accumulated knowledge of ages was of no 
avail when the disease was confirmed. Mr. Percivall, my esteemed 
friend, schoolfellow, and colleague, follows in the next generation 
of distinguished observers of this direful scourge; his field of 
observation and opportunities of experiments has been very great, 
particularly during his early career. In the present state of vete- 
rinary science, it was a great desideratum that a writer of his ac- 
knowledged talent should have taken up the subject of glanders, 
and upon close perusal of it a most comprehensive and painstaking 
work will be found, affording knowledge to the student and }'oung 
practitioner indispensable to his success, and to the experienced 
veterinary surgeon much enlightenment. 
Mr. Percivall is fully aware, with other practitioners, that well- 
marked cases of spontaneous cures of glanders occasionally occur, 
as also cures under the influence of medicine or experiment; but 
they are “ few and far between,” like visitors from another world ; 
and our author has not • sullied his treatise with any vain flourish 
of trumpets, such as headings of “ Glanders and Farcy Cured,” but 
concludes with the following honest, plain, and straightforward 
statement : — “ Passing from the accounts of others to the results of 
my own observation and experience , I would it were in my power 
to present my reader with an antidote as effectual as our prophy- 
lactic measures have proved against the horrible and fatal disease 
whose causes and nature we have been investigating. Few men 
in the veterinary profession have, perhaps, had greater opportunities 
than myself afforded them of making observations and experiments 
in cases of glanders and farcy ; all, however, I regret to be forced 
