Anthrax ; Glanders. 
231 
Glanders. 
The following Table shows the number of cases of this 
disease for each of the past six years : — 
Year 
No. of cases 
Year 
No. of cases 
1901 
2,370 
1904 
2,628 
1902 
2,040 
1905 
2,068 
1903 
2,499 
1906 
2,012 
It will be seen from the above figures that during the past 
year no sensible progress has been made towards the extermi- 
nation of the disease. As in all previous years, the great bulk 
of the cases of glanders reported have occurred in London and 
the Home Counties. 
Throughout the rest of the country, if one excepts Birming- 
ham, Manchester, and a few of the other large towns, glanders 
is rarely met with, and then practically always as a result of 
the introduction into the locality of a horse from London or 
one of the other large centres of permanent infection. The 
local outbreaks in country districts are always easily dealt 
with, as, when the disease has been diagnosed, there is usually 
little or no difficulty in determining what horses have been 
exposed to infection. By the use of mallein on the suspected 
animals it can then be ascertained which of them are actually 
infected. The number of these is usually not large, and by 
promptly slaughtering them the outbreak can be cut short 
without great expense to the local authority. 
In London the circumstances are quite different. There, 
almost the whole of the large studs have long been more or 
less infected, and when a clinical case of the disease is detected 
it is often very difficult to ascertain precisely how many other 
horses ought to be considered as suspected. To eradicate glanders 
from the large London studs would require the systematic use 
of mallein on all the animals known to have been in the same 
stable with any horse found to be glandered, and in many 
instances the occurrence of a single case of clinical glanders 
would necessitate the application of the mallein test to some 
hundreds of horses. Experience already gained shows that 
a very considerable proportion, varying from 10 to 80 per cent, 
of the apparently healthy horses in infected stables will react 
when tested with mallein, and must therefore be regarded as 
actually glandered and capable of spreading the infection. No 
outbreak can be satisfactorily dealt with unless these apparently 
healthy, but in reality diseased, horses are either separated 
and permanently isolated or immediately destroyed. When 
the proportion of reacting animals in a large stud is a high 
