526 
EDITORIAL. 
The prize will be awarded upon the verdict of a committee of 
five veterinarians, selected from the ranks of the profession at 
large throughout the United States. The committee consists of 
Prof. R. Huidekoper, chairman, Dr. J. C. Myers, Sr., A. A. 
Holcombe, L. Howard, and D. J. Dixon. 
The Recent Outbreak of Glanders in Massachusetts. —In 
the month of November, 1887, we mentioned the fact of a serious 
outbreak of glanders in Massachusetts, in the suburbs of Boston. 
The history of this momentous event is ably reported in the an¬ 
nual report of the Cattle Commissioners for 1887, just received; 
and the results of the incident demonstrate once more the com¬ 
paratively light esteem in which a professional opinion is held 
when it is in the minority against that of officials who, though 
unqualifiedly gentlemen, perfectly honest and of a high intelligence, 
yet are not possessed of special and technical training. 
This is well illustrated in the case before us. Two of the 
Cattle Commissioners, neither veterinarians, we believe, or, if so, 
more amateur than regular practitioners, constituted the majority 
of the Cattle Commission against Dr. F. Winchester, and the re¬ 
sult was that a number of horses which had been condemned as 
diseased and as suspicious by two veterinarians called as experts 
were released from quarantine and allowed to resume their work. 
The propriety of ignoring the reports of the experts, after they 
had been appointed by the Cattle Commission, is certainly ques¬ 
tionable, as, while there is a difference in the number of animals 
condemned, their reports agree on twenty animals examined, 
which are then condemned, and, in the presence of the facts, it 
seems, ought to have been destroyed. Well, the majority ruled; 
these were permitted to go with the others. A question may 
naturally present itself as to what influence may have been 
brought to bear on the minds of those two gentlemen who thus 
formed the majority. We believe that the opinions expressed by 
some of the veterinarians who inspected the horses for the rail¬ 
road company must have had weight in the decision of the major¬ 
ity. To say that u they never heard of or saw pin-hole ulceration 
in connection with glanders;” to deny the existence of the dis¬ 
ease because u three lesions—gland, ulcer, and discharge ”—were 
