378 
ON GLANDERS IN MAN, THE SOLIPEDE, AND 
OTHER MAMMIFEROUS ANIMALS. 
[Extracted from a Memoir read at the Academy of Sciences, Feb. 10, 1840.] 
By MM. Breschet and Rayer. 
Comparative anatomy and physiology not only cast a vivid 
light on the anatomy and physiology of man, but the study of the 
diseases of animals serves to dissipate many of the doubts and in¬ 
certitudes which yet prevail in the pathology of the human being. 
This path, first indicated by the old Academy of Sciences, and by 
the Royal Society of Medicine, has been brilliantly pursued by 
many of the members of the Academy of Science, and especially 
by Vicq d’Azir. It is not only allowable but necessary to avail 
ourselves of every source by which we may benefit society in the 
preservation of the human being from various contagious diseases, 
not only serious, but almost constantly mortal. 
We shall at present confine ourselves chiefly to glanders and 
rabies. A letter having been addressed by the Minister of War 
to the Academy of Sciences, demanding the cause of the great fre¬ 
quency of glanders among the horses of the French army, we de¬ 
termined to communicate to you the researches and the experiments 
which M. Rayer and myself have undertaken, on the contagion of 
glanders, and the mode of its transmission to the human being. 
Although these questions are not directly and positively indicated 
in the demand of the minister of war, they claim, nevertheless, all 
the interest and all the solicitude of the administrative authorities. 
We have not yet completed our researches; but we think that 
by taking a rapid sketch of the state of science on these grand 
questions, we may be able to throw some light on a point so im¬ 
portant to public health, and in our pursuit of comparative patho¬ 
logy. In a second essay we will state the result of our experi¬ 
mental studies. 
Glanders, one of the most cruel maladies to which the horse is 
subject, possesses the fatal property, whether by inoculation or in¬ 
fection, of transmitting to other animals and to the human being. 
The fact of that transmission, long denied, has acquired, at length, 
a certitude which may serve as a base for the study of comparative 
anatomy, and the regulations of the administration with respect to 
public health. 
It was long thought, and is still believed by manv veterinarians, 
that glanders is a particular and exclusive disease of the horse; but 
recent observations and experiments, many of which are our own, 
