GLANDERS. 
408 
The occurrence of case after case in the same stables is quite 
as suggestive of aerial infection as of the conveyance of infection 
from horse to horses by direct contact, or through the medium 
of polluted stable fittings, sponges, buckets, &c. 
It is worthy of remark that in more than one instance the dis¬ 
ease existed in two separate localities, on premises in the occu¬ 
pation of the same owner, pointing to the probability that 
infection had been conveyed by people in the employ of the 
proprietor. The way in which cases of glanders and farcy have 
been mixed up in some of the stables, well illustrated as it is in 
the preceding tables, will probably suffice to show the intimacy 
of the relation that subsists between these two diseases, if indeed, 
they be not varieties of one and the same disease. The spread 
of the diseases points, I cannot but think, to the insufficiency 
of the processes adopted for cleansing and disinfecting premises, 
and which obviously were insufficient to destroy the special virus. 
In connection with this subject, and in support of the view thus 
expressed, it seems not unreasonable to point to the Omnibus 
Company's stables, where one case only existed in a large stud 
of horses, the presumption being that, by the measures adopted 
for purifying the premises, the disease was stamped out without 
loss of time. 
To prevent misconception, it should be well understood that 
the date of the death of any given horse, by no means furnishes 
a clue to the date of attack. There are doubtless at the present 
moment scores, it may be hundreds, of horses in the metropolis 
affected with glanders—many of them at work—of which the 
“ Local Authority " has no knowledge. Most of these horses 
probably are employed in night cabs and omnibuses, and the 
only way of detecting would be for the inspectors of the Board, 
with the assistance of the police, to make raids at uncertain in¬ 
tervals on cab and ’bus stands, examine every horse on the rank, 
and the stables from which diseased horses had come. The 
dread of such inspections, and the consequences of detection, 
would, I doubt not, lead to frequent disclosure of diseased 
horses. As showing the inveterate tendency to concealment, I 
may again refer to the outbreak at Colville Mews, where, in the 
early part of last year, some ten horses had been killed or had 
died before the disease was brought to light, and then only 
owing to the spread of it to two human beings. Not long after, 
moreover, w T e were instrumental in bringing to knowledge a 
group of cases that had occurred at another stable, and there 
was a race between the police officer and the proprietor of the 
stables in October, 1878, and therefore seven months prior to the first 
case of “ farcy ” in Warwick Load, referred to in the text of the report. 
—May 7 th. 
