200 
MR. YOUATT'S VETERINARY LECTURES. 
period, until he is five years old, he is not often attacked by this 
fatal disease; for, although he is more exposed to danger, neither 
his frame generally, nor the membrane of the nose in particular, 
is much debilitated or disposed to take on inflammatory action. 
After that period the disease much more frequently appears. 
In a record of 134 horses that died of glanders in a cavalry 
regiment, the following is the singular result. It should, how¬ 
ever, be previously stated, that the majority, or almost all of 
them, are admitted considerably under five years old, and that 
many are smuggled in when they are not much above three. 
Under five years old, only five died—from five to six, sixteen— 
from six to seven, thirty-one—from seven to eight, twenty-seven 
—from eight to nine, twenty-seven—from nine to ten, eighteen— 
and above ten, seven. The greater number perished from six to 
ten; and they that had sufficient strength of constitution to 
repel the fatal influence by which they were surrounded until 
they were ten years old, had been completely seasoned, and 
could not be killed by any thing. A great deal of instruction 
will be derived from a comparison of the earlier ages, and which 
your reflections cannot fail of suggesting to you. 
The main Cause is Contagion .—I now approach, gentlemen, 
not without hesitation, but without fear, the grand cause of glan¬ 
ders—contagion. I advisedly call it “ the grand cause/’ for I 
believe that I shall be able to render it probable, that glanders 
arise oftener from contagion than from any other source. I 
know r that our continental neighbours deny the contagiousness of 
glanders altogether; but they do not, and cannot, deny that the 
disease does follow contact, and often mere proximity of situation. 
When they tell me that it is not the disease that is communi¬ 
cated, but a mere predisposition, a greater aptitude in the frame 
generally, or some part of it, to be affected by the usual causes 
of glanders, I cannot but regard this as the merest quibbling. I 
take the broad fact, that a glandered horse being inadvertently ad¬ 
mitted into a stable, some of his companions after awhile become 
glandered too. The stable has previously and for many years— 
nay, from the very time of its erection—been free from the disease, 
and no alteration whatever has taken place in the .system of ma¬ 
nagement; a glandered horse finds his way thither, and in a few 
months the whole team is glandered. When, in the face of this, 
a person tells me that it was not the disease which was commu¬ 
nicated, but a facility of being acted upon by certain agents, I 
regard it as a species of quibbling unworthy of a scientific pa¬ 
thologist; and I deprecate the injury which may be done to the 
agricultural community by the broad assertion, thus ridiculously 
and falsely explained, that glanders is not contagious. 
