224 
ON THE CONTAGION OF GLANDERS. 
the influence of hurried respiration, oxydation of the combustible 
elements takes place with so great rapidity that the exhalation of 
the carbonic acid product cannot get vent with sufficient celerity, 
and the consequence is, the animal dies asphyxiated, or charbon- 
neux. In this case, a new principle, a ferment, becomes generated 
in his blood, under the influence of extreme oxydation. 
XII. I am not to be supposed to admit that in every case glan- 
ders is the result of extreme oxydation. I reserve this interpreta- 
tion for one cause alone of the disease, viz., for over-work. 
Most certainly I admit that other causes are in operation among 
our cavalry; and yet, whenever work does affect troop horses, and 
that not infrequently happens, its influence becomes the more 
marked according as the horses are ill-fed or fed on forage of bad 
quality. 
Assuredly I do not find fault with the amelioration produced 
in cavalry barracks of late years; but I contend that, for this 
measure to yield all the fruits to be expected from it, we ought to 
augment the quantity and better the quality of the rations of food 
in proportion as we augment and improve the air furnished the 
horses for respiration : it being an undeniable physiological fact, 
that the demands of reparation are so much the more active ac- 
cording as the respired air is dense and more vitalizing — in a word, 
more combustible. 
XIII. I approach, next, the question of 
The Contagion of Glanders. 
In practice, glanders ought by all to be considered 
AS A CONTAGIOUS disease. Everybody admits it to be so in the 
acute form. 
Is glanders, then, contagious in its chronic form 1 Some affirm 
that it is; the greater number deny it. On this point great di- 
vergence of opinion and facts have led to interminable discussions, 
on account of the parties opposed reciprocally adducing facts ap- 
parently incontestible in their authenticity. How are such to be 
reconciled ? That now is easy, since the cause of their divergence 
has come to be discovered. 
Glanders in the form called chronic is a disease but ill defined 
by symptoms. It continually oscillates, if I may so express myself, 
between the chronic stage, as denoted by the ancientness of the 
lesions set up in consequence of the disease in the orgasm ; and the 
acute stage, which is displayed by intermittence under the in- 
fluence of a multitude of occasional causes, and keeps adding fresh 
lesions to the old ones. 
