252 SUPPOSED CAUSE OF GLANDERS AND FARCY. 
rapidity proportional to the supply of the peculiar pabulum 
which their cells respectively require. 
If the principal characteristic of both glanders and farcy 
be, as I think there is reason from the different writers 
quoted by Mr. Percivall to consider it, the deposit and 
secretion of coagulated albumen with osseous matter; then I 
think also that the proneness of the horse to osseous en- 
largements and deposits may be accounted for on the suppo- 
sition of an access of the phosphates in the system ; and 
bearing in mind that the horse is the only animal, so far as I 
am aware of, that is subject to idiopathic glanders, is there 
not a possibility of there being some truth in the idea I have 
put forth ? 
I am aware there are other acids which have the same 
property of coagulating albumen, but I do not know of any 
which enter so largely into the system as the phosphoric. 
That the virus should primarily affect the mucous membrane 
of the septum nasi and air-passages in glanders, may be ac- 
counted for, from its being exposed to the irritating influ- 
ence of the miasm ; or, as Mr. Percivall states, “to the effluvia 
caused by moisture and heat to arise from desiccated be- 
smearments left by glandered horses formerly inhabiting the 
same stable.” So predisposed, the membrane gives out 
an excessive secretion, while the state of the albumen 
leads to a blocking up of the capillaries; and from the 
stagnation which ensues, the albumen loses its vitality, and 
becomes corrosive — bursting into ulcers — which often take 
on the chancrous type. The ulceration which is thus set 
up by the secretion of the virus from the blood, is confined 
for a time to the capillaries, giving to the disease all 
the characteristics of a local one ; but sooner or later, by the 
^absorption of the virus, the lymphatics and their ganglia 
become affected, and farcy is added to glanders, by which the 
life of the animal is speedily terminated. 
That an animal should continue to be able to work and 
evince good spirits, when so much of the pabulum of muscular 
fibre is withheld I attribute to the increase of nerve-matter — 
phosphuretted fat — causing an augmentation of nervo-mus- 
cular power for a time. That this increase does exist, I have 
endeavoured to prove by experiment, by adding a small 
quantity of a diluted solution of phosphoric acid to blood as 
it flowed from a vein, when I found that minute globules 
floated on the top of the serum; and that they were fat I after- 
wards proved by a microscopical examination, and also by 
dissolving them in aether and evaporating the fluid on a slip 
of glass, when a greasy stain remained. 
