18 
GLANDERS. 
milk daily, that the imbibition should have the effect of ino¬ 
culation ; no more than that the transfusion of two quarts of 
blood should not produce the disease while a gallon would : 
Mr. Hunter concluded that the blood was never infected 
because he could not communicate disease by inoculation 
with a single drop or two of it; but it has since been shown 
to be capable of infecting, and even destroying, by transfusion. 
With regard to the foster-foal not catching the disease from 
the dam—^it appears, that, in the very midst of contagion and 
with every likely means but one essayed to produce it, the* 
animal escaped it; but, did it escape in consequence of the 
non-contagious nature of the malady, the insusceptibility of its 
own body, or the mode in which the contagious virus was ap¬ 
plied ? Setting aside susceptibility—that inexplicable but con¬ 
venient resource of the pathologist—the question comes to us in 
a simplified and more answerable form, viz: Is it possible to 
communicate glanders by bringing the virus into contact with 
the membrane lining the nose, unless there be abrasion or 
lesion of the surface ? If it is, why was not the foster-foal con¬ 
taminated ? why was not the mare’s own foal contaminated 
within the womb? finally, why was not the disease communi¬ 
cated in hundreds of similar instances we might adduce from 
various writers, - besides many from our own observation ? But, 
granting that glanders is not communicable but by actual con¬ 
tact and abrasion, does it necessarily follow that her own foal 
must have inherited the disease from the mare ? Is it not possi¬ 
ble—hay, within the pale of probability, that it might have con¬ 
tracted the malady from the same unknown causes to which its 
dam (or, if not she, the other glandered horses) owed the dis- 
« 
order ? We shall, in a future number, return and enter more 
at large into the consideration of these highly interesting and 
important questions. 
? *1 
Ed. Vet. 
