INSIDIOUS GLANDERS IN HORSES. 
605 
common divisions of glanders, called chronic and acute , by adding 
a third, and shall presume to designate it Insidious Glanders . 
This disease consists in a watery discharge from one or both 
nostrils, more frequently from one only; generally containing 
small particles of mucus or pus; at others, assuming the appear¬ 
ance of froth; invariably in very small quantity, but never entirely 
ceasing^ either by night or day, at rest or in motion. Now, if this 
were accompanied with an enlarged submaxillary gland, the 
size of a walnut, and inclined to the side of the jaw, you would 
naturally say there is nothing treacherous in this; it does not 
differ from a common case of chronic glanders in the early stage. 
But how stands the fact? Why, in the disease to which I 
allude, the submaxillary gland is indurated and enlarged only 
to the size of a pea, or a horse-bean; frequently loose, or not ad¬ 
herent to the jaw bone, and therefore presenting no characteristic 
symptom of disease, except such as we usually meet with in in¬ 
cipient catarrh: and when this inconsiderable discharge issues 
from both nostrils, the case is still more delusive. There is also 
another circumstance which conspires almost invariably to lead 
the owner astray, severely to his cost; that is, the subject is, in the 
majority of instances, a most specious looking animal, full of 
flesh, gay in spirits, and w ith a good coat. What, then, enables 
us to decide on the real nature of the malady ? Why, the 
owner’s history, who tells us that the gleet or discharge, faint or 
trifling as it appears, has existed for a period, perhaps, of eight 
or nine months without intermission, or as long as he may have 
had the horse in his possession. 
Now, gentlemen, in these cases there is no affection of the 
Schneiderian membrane within sight, no particular colour in the 
discharge, no footor, (but I admit that it is sometimes viscid), no 
enlargement opposite the frontal sinuses, and no sw elled legs, 
or any thing resembling farcy. The horse eats, drinks, takes his 
rest, and in the midst of w ork maintains his condition, whilst the 
two symptoms before described remain stationary, for perhaps 
years, without any apparent increase, but are never removed; 
and yet such a subject is capable, by inoculation, of producing 
acute glanders and farcy in other horses. 
From the isolated fact of a horse having secreted pus from the 
mucous membranes lining the air-passages of the head for a 
period of many months, w ithout intermission, I infer the possibility 
in some instances, under particular circumstances, of generating 
the specific poison of gdanders. 
I hope it will not be supposed that I have been labouring to 
describe another species of glanders: I entertain no such idea. 
I believe it to be the same common poison of glanders con- 
