222 
ON THE PRODUCTION OF GLANDERS. 
for its reparation, and the oxygen of the air with combustible 
matters fit for the development and completion of its affinities, and 
through combination with it, for the production of the required 
animal heat. 
IX. But if, while we are exacting continually from the animal 
machine a large demand of strength — which, as I said before, en- 
tails the introduction of a considerable quantity of atmospheric air 
into the air passages — we do not afford a sufficient supply of ali- 
mentary substance, that is to say, of azotic and combustible matters, 
the oxygen may exert its affinities on the matter actually compos- 
ing the organs themselves, determining a rapid decomposition, and 
finally producing with the azotic matter a new principle endowed 
with powerful novel affinities, expediting by its presence the de- 
composition of the orgasm, and discovering itself during life by 
that cohort of symptoms and derangements which characterise 
glanders. 
This active principle, the result of the extreme oxydation of the 
system, analogous in its origin and progress to ferments, is glan- 
dered virus. 
I am, indeed, struck with the analogy existing between the mode 
of generation of glandered ferment in the living body, under the in- 
fluence of the oxygen of the air, and ferments which are concocted 
without vitality through the affinities of this same gas. 
Without entering here into the complex theory of the phenome- 
non of fermentation, I establish through modern chemistry this 
fact, viz., that it becomes necessary for the development of fer- 
mentation, no matter under what conditions, that azotic matter and 
the oxygen of the air should be brought together ; that once fer- 
mentation developed, the ferment cannot generate and augment 
its volume but through the intervention of an azotic matter, which it 
assimilates after the manner of the animal process, and transforms 
into its own substance; and, lastly, that all fermentable matter will 
become, in the presence of a ferment, under certain conditions of 
temperature and moisture, decomposed, and resolved into more 
simple combinations. 
Now, may we not admit that, in the vital orgasm, azotic matter, 
continually coming into contact with the oxygen of the air, may 
become converted into a peculiar ferment, the same as we behold 
in the dead body, the organic substance turning into putrid ferment 
through the combined action of air and water and moderate heat ] 
There is an approximation here which has something specious 
about it. 
Once produced, in whatever way it may be generated, glandered 
ferment, it is certain, is accompanied by ulterior phenomena in the 
system which bear the closest analogy to those of recognised fer- 
