GLANDERS. 
7 
to occur in all manner of ways. In the 15th century Ruini held 
the same opinion. Winter von Adlers Flugel, a quaint German 
author of the 16th century, had many odd ideas concerning the 
nature of the disease. He describes it as occurring in two forms 
—“white,” or stone glanders, which was curable in the earlier 
stages; and the other called “ yellow,” giving forth an offensive 
odor and incurable. 
From the latter part of the last century there has always been 
an active controversy as to the genesis of glanders, one school af¬ 
firming it was purely contagious, another admitting its contagious¬ 
ness, but affirming its genesis to all sorts of circumstances. 
These two opinions still oppose each other, but those affirming the 
abiogenetic or spontaneous generation of glanders are gradually 
becoming less and less. At this present day there are still many 
advocates of its spontaneous generation both in France and Eng¬ 
land. Of modern English authors, Professor Williams and Dr. 
Fleming are the best known. Dr. Fleming, in his “ Veterinary 
Police,” speaks of glanders “as a special diathesis peculiar to the 
equine species.” How, glanders is not a “ diathesis .” Diathesis 
is derived from the Greek to “ dispose, 1 ' and the word means a 
peculiar condition of an organism, predisposing it to certain dis¬ 
eases, as scrofula disposes to tuberculosis. Glanders can be 
spoken of as a “ dyscrasis.” Logically, it cannot be applied to 
that peculiarity of the different animal species by which certain 
. diseases originate in them primarily, or only in them. We can¬ 
not speak of a measles diathesis, or a rinderpest diathesis, any 
more than of a glanders diathesis. A diathesis is something in¬ 
herited or produced. It is a weakness causing a tendency to sec¬ 
ondary complications. 
Acute glanders has been occasionally supposed to be merely 
the expression of purulent infection in the equine species, from 
the frequency with which it has been observed to follow severe 
operations, purulent fevers, or inflamed blood-vessels. Glanders 
is not a purulent affection, and when appearing under any of the 
above circumstances, was either present in a latent form prior to 
their occurrence, and they acted as the causa sujjidens , or the 
animal acquired it after either of the above conditions were pro¬ 
duced. 
