100 
COMPTE-RF.NDU OF THE 
is when this dreadful malady effects such extensive ravages, and 
with such uninterrupted continuance, on the animals of the equine 
species which surround us, that every day new cases present them- 
selves to our observation ; and although the subject seems to be 
nearly exhausted, and every thing appears to have been said on 
this malady that has so long occupied our attention, nevertheless, 
it is evidently important briefly to relate the result of our observa- 
tions on this disease during the course of the last year. 
The number of animals affected with glanders that have been 
presented to our observation during the last year has been so 
considerable, that it may be said that glanders has reigned, and 
reigns still, in an enzootic state, in all the environs of Paris. It 
has principally appeared among horses employed in the fortifi- 
cations, who have severely suffered. The form under which it 
has oftenest shewn itself is an acute one. Without denying that 
contagion has contributed to the development of the affection, 
we do not think that that was the principal cause of this exten- 
sive malady. We are rather inclined to think that it ought to be 
attributed to the severe and debilitating labour to which they are 
necessarily exposed. This fact will surprise no one, when it is 
recollected that, in a great number of working carts, the horses 
are employed eighteen hours out of the twenty-four on a rough 
road, and badly fed. That which renders this form of it most 
frequent is, that the horses that are the most subject to it 
are those which exert the greatest muscular strength ; namely, 
those who, according to the confession of the owners themselves, 
are the best and the most willing in harness. 
This fact will occupy an important place in the general history 
of glanders, where many similar cases have already been reported, 
under the influence of certain observations which actually exist in 
medicine. There is too great a tendency to make contagion 
play a seemingly exclusive part in the propagation of glanders. 
With respect to the contagion of acute glanders, we must 
refer to a circumstance that clinical observation and experiment 
have rendered very important. Acute glanders has not appeared 
to us to possess so extensive a contagious property as it did in 
1840. When in 1840, at the same period of the year, we gave 
a singular account of the discoveries that we had made on this 
malady, we affirmed, after our experiments, that it readily trans- 
mitted itself from horse to horse by cohabitation. This year our 
direct experiments have not afforded such frequent and certain re- 
sults ; and we have seen numerous sets of horses affected with 
acute glanders, cohabiting for a long period with sound horses, 
that have not ultimately been in the slightest degree affected. 
This fact belongs to the general history of contagious mala- 
