385 
GLANDERS AND FARCY COMMUNICABLE BY 
INFECTION TO THE HUMAN SUBJECT. 
By Samuel Brown, M. R. C. V. S., Melton Mowbray. 
Gentlemen, — I CONCEIVE that the generally received opinion, 
both in the medical and veterinary professions, respecting farcy -and 
glanders in the horse, is that that pest of the equine race and loath- 
some disease to man is only communicable to the latter by ino- 
culation : but the two fatal cases of farcy that have so recently 
occurred in Melton, would lead us to suppose that the human sub- 
ject is capable of taking either of those similar diseases by infec- 
tion. 
The patient, whom I saw several times during the progress of 
the malady, was Thomas Whitaker, whose case was clearly one of 
inoculation. The poor fellow was bald-headed, and received a 
slight scratch on his scalp which cost him his life. He recollected 
wiping the perspiration off his head several times with his dirty 
hands ; and as the scratch in his scalp first shewed the true charac- 
ters of a farcy ulcer, there can be little doubt as to the inocula- 
tion having taken place at the time of skinning the farcied horse. 
This patient was a pitiable object and great sufferer in the latter 
stage of the disorder, and survived the inoculation twenty-one days. 
Robert Pick, an old, faithful, and, I believe, valued, servant to 
the gentleman who owned the farcied pony, was the subject of 
the second lamentable case, which is considered one of infection ; 
and the infection is supposed to have been conveyed by the foetid 
breath of the animal, while the poor man was in the act of giving 
some mucilage of linseed to the pony a few hours before his death. 
A few days after the death of the pony, Dick complained of being 
unwell, and of having pain in his knee. At first the pain 
was regarded as rheumatism, but ultimately proved to be that of 
farcy, as that disease shewed itself in its true character and viru- 
lence, which ended the suffering patient’s life on the twenty-second 
day after he had inhaled the fetid breath of the animal. 
It is unnecessary for me to occupy your pages by detailing the 
symptoms of farcy and glanders in the human subject. Suffice it 
to say, that they are similar to those which characterise the same 
diseases in the horse ; and that they are accurately given in the 
last number of The VETERINARIAN, as abstracted from the works 
of Professor Hasse. 
My object in sending you this communication is to shew the ne- 
cessity of our taking every possible precaution as regards farcy 
VOL. XTX. 3 G 
