VETERINARY SCHOOL AT ALFORT. 
555 
But such a calculation in its application leads to the saddest 
results. Disregarding any feeling brutes possess, as well as every 
faculty of conservation, and looking upon them as mere machines, 
all organic movement is perverted, and living parts, so prompt to 
accommodate themselves by virtue of their complex structure, 
frequently acquire properties most adverse to organization. 
The wheels of a living machine, indeed, do not wear after the 
manner of those of one without life, by simple external friction, 
changing the shape and superficies of parts without affecting even 
their structure. But with the organic body it is inwardly, within 
its profoundest depths, at the points of contact between its cbn- 
stituent molecules, within that mysterious inclosure wherein the 
nutrition which supports the wear and tear is in operation, or 
rather that unseen and incomprehensible alteration of living matter 
which deprives it of its affinities and normal aptitudes to commu- 
nicate fresh properties to it, often contrary to the very principles 
even of life. 
In this manner are engendered, at the very founts even of nutri- 
tion, the germs of contagious diseases. 
If now we dismiss theory to consider matters in their practical 
bearing, we perceive at every point confirmation of the general 
assertion we made at setting out, viz. that glanders is a necessary 
and fatal consequence of excess of work, carried to an extremity, 
to which the horse is subject in most industrial employments. 
Almost all at the present day have experienced strokes from this 
flail. Glanders succeeds as surely as the shadow follows the sub- 
stance, and such are found to be its ravages, that frequently in a 
few years the same stable becomes the dwelling of many fresh 
inhabitants. 
Such a malady as this is not only harmful to social weal, it 
threatens the public health. It may, in fact, be said that in spread- 
ing from time to time over a greater number of heads, and inces- 
santly undergoing revival at its proper source, the glanderous virus 
has become, as it were, concentrated, and in our days has acquired 
renewed activity. And, indeed, notwithstanding acute glanders 
has been known from the earliest antiquity, seeing that Absyrtus 
has given a complete description of it, yet open the works of 
authors of no older date than a quarter of a century, and you will 
hardly find mention made of its acute form : if they do mention it, 
it appears as a rare occurrence, an exception, a complication of 
chronic glanders, the only form which, from its frequency, seems 
worth giving their attention to. 
While at the present day, the acute form of the disease, i. e. 
the contagious form, is perhaps more common than the chronic dis- 
ease, and for certain is so frequently complicated with this last 
