CAUSES OF GLANDERS IN CAVALRY HORSES. 
205 
the very best, as good as that on which the farmers keep their 
own horses without these latter becoming glandered. We must 
also state, that a bad course of feeding must be persisted in for a 
considerable period before it can deteriorate the constitution of 
a horse and bring on glanders. Before the evil has proceeded 
to this length, the prejudicial quality of the fodder generally be- 
comes manifest in the digestive organs, which are the first to 
suffer from the irritation occasioned by it, gastro-enteritis being 
produced : such affections, however, are rarely met with in regi- 
ments. 
To those who attribute the evil to badly-managed stables, to, the 
vitiated air engendered in them, to the temperature being too high, 
and to their being badly littered, &c., I reply, that barrack-stabling 
has lately been very much improved, and yet the ravages occa- 
sioned in regiments by glanders continue to be as extensive as 
ever. Out of the army, and especially among farmers, whose 
stables are invariably bad, glanders is but little known. Thus, in 
the four departments of Lorraine, where horses of every breed and 
district are to be found, and where such animals are badly fed, 
seldom cleaned, over- worked for nine months of the year, and shut 
up in low, hot, close stables for the remaining three, without light, 
with scarcely sufficient air to breathe, without exercise, and with 
the dung left to accumulate for eight days at a time, the horses 
are seldom ill, and still more seldom attacked with glanders. 
In the department of the Moselle, where I practised for six 
years, the number of horses which died of glanders was but three 
in every thousand, per annum. 
To those who seek for the cause of glanders in premature work, 
we reply, that most farm-horses are worked at two years and 
a half old. Regular, moderate work is always favourable to 
growth: if it is overdone it causes the horse to lose flesh, but does 
not dispose him to contract glanders, provided that all sudden sup- 
pression of perspiration is carefully avoided. Besides, regimental 
horses are never worked too early ; they are seldom used until 
five years old, and then only moderately and properly worked. 
Lastly, without attempting to deny that defective constitutions 
and a want of judgment in the selection of cavalry horses predis- 
poses them for glanders, we reply, that the validity of this cause 
would be greater if it were only horses of a feeble constitution 
which perished ; but, unfortunately, it is not so ; it is in general 
the finest, the most spirited, and most vigorous horses, those 
which work best and exert themselves most, which fall victims 
to glanders. 
We have already stated that, apart from the army, and in the 
badly managed stables of farmers and other horse-keepers, glanders 
VOL. xx. f f 
