454 
GLANDERS AND FARCY. 
quadrumana, whence it has been derived. Although these va- 
rieties of disease are developed in different structures, and al- 
though it may not be easy to give a satisfactory explanation of 
the nature of their intimate relationship, still their identity is a 
fact which experimental inquiries have fully established. Every 
reader of this work is aware that the one form may co-exist with 
the other in the horse ; that glanders may appear first, and farcy 
be superinduced, or vice versa. But recent investigation has 
gone farther than this in proving that with the matter taken from 
the nostrils of a glandered animal, free from farcy, we can pro- 
duce the latter variety of the disease, and often in its simple un- 
complicated form, in another animal perfectly free from all 
disease ; moreover, that simple glanders may be generated 
merely by inoculation with the matter of a simple farcied tumour. 
Now this is precisely the reverse of that which, reasoning from 
analogy, we should be led to infer. We might naturally expect 
that the inoculated matter would produce the exact type of that 
form of the disease by which it was generated, and not one of a 
different aspect, and belonging to a different structure. This is 
an anomaly in the causation of disease, and tends in no small 
degree to baffle our inquiries as to the source, th efons et origo , of 
the intimate connexion that exists between glanders and farcy. 
We know, from experiment, that the glands and absorbents of a 
limb, from the fetlock upwards, become farcied owing to their 
absorption of the poisonous matter ; but how are we to explain the 
subsequent development of an apparently different affection 
(glanders) in a perfectly distinct tissue (mucous membrane) from 
that of the parent variety of the disease? To say that the latter 
is the result of sympathy would be rather a vague explanation : 
besides, a serious objection might be started against this hypo- 
thesis, viz. if the latter is a sympathetic affection in this instance, 
why is not the entire mucous tissue involved ?• Why is it that 
the mucous membrane lining the respiratory organs only is that 
which is specifically affected ? These are important considerations, 
as having a direct bearing on the treatment of glanders, which 
our present knowledge unfortunately does not enable us to ex- 
plain with sufficient precision and clearness. 
We were often struck with the resemblance that exists between 
the symptoms of farcy and those of a disease occasionally seen in 
the human subject; we allude to that fatal malady arising from 
the inoculation of matter during human dissections, or “ dissect- 
ing wound inflammation,” as it is called. The glands and ab- 
sorbents are affected specifically, and in a precisely similar 
manner to that of farcy. The disease spreads rapidly along the 
absorbents of the arm, and may be seen forming red lines from 
