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Contagiousness of Strangles. 
The Veterinarian for January contained an extracted article 
on this subject, shewing that the old French veterinarians, deriv- 
ing their authority from Solleysel, entertained the notion that 
strangles was a contagious disease ; one that was afterwards laid 
aside as erroneous; nor has it been until late revived, and now 
only by some of our French brother professionals. In the issue of 
the “ Reared” now before us, M. Reynal, Clinical Professor at the 
Alfort School, submits a number of observations corroborative of 
this opinion ; one to which, after some years of opposition, he has 
felt bound to yield, from having been so circumstanced as to have 
under his immediate observation numbers of strangled horses 
which in the most striking manner communicated the disease to 
sound horses associating with them. Such remarkable transmis- 
sion would indeed have surprised him had the subject not been, 
by so distinguished a veterinarian as M. Damalix, senior ve- 
terinary surgeon to the 1st Lancers, repeatedly brought to his 
notice. M. Reynal follows these preliminary remarks up by 
bringing before us many striking observations, several noted by 
M. Damalix in his own regiment, shewing how young horses 
having strangles, and put into stables with horses of adult age, 
doing their duty, have communicated the disease to those of the 
latter who have stood in adjoining stalls, though some few have 
only exhibited the disease in the catarrhal form. Even the foal 
has been known to suck the disease from its dam. 
Moreover, experiment has been had recourse to, to inoculate for 
strangles. 
M. Damalix smeared with a sponge impregnated with matter 
taken from the abscess of strangles, twice daily, both sides of the 
pituitary membrane and the internal surfaces of the linings of the 
eyelids, in a sound horse, about to be cast for spavin. This was 
continued for seven days. On the eighth, he remarked, the horse 
had lost his appetite, had commenced running from both nostrils, 
coughed softly and loosely, had swelling under the jaw, which 
ended in resolution ; all the symptoms terminating eight days from 
their commencement. 
It has been remarked, that strangles is more surely communicated 
at an early than a late stage ; and in a certain form more readily 
than in others. Strangles will assume the herpetic character, 
will simulate farcy and glanders, will settle in the mesenteric glands 
or in some traumatic lesion or consecutive cicatrix, as for example 
after castration. In regard to contagion, may be mentioned as most 
readily communicable that form of strangles which assumes the 
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