GLANDERS. 
409 
stables which should be the first in arriving at the Board In¬ 
spector’s surgery to report the occurrence of the last case. The 
horse owner won ; but he did not save himself from successful 
prosecution, the Local Authority having proceeded against him 
on the ground that he did not immediately report the cases as 
required by the Order of the Privy Council. 
It would be interesting, did time permit, to discuss probable 
modes of the.spread of glanders other than those obvious modes 
to w r hich I have alluded. I shall only refer at this time to the 
probability of infection being conveyed by virus deposited by 
diseased horses in public drinking troughs. So strongly did I 
feel on this risk that I ventured some time back to recommend, 
among other precautions, that your Vestry's horses should be 
separately watered each with its own bucket, and not suffered to 
use a common drinking trough even in the stable yard. This 
precaution was the more necessary because in the earlier stages, 
and in the chronic form of the disease, it is highly probable that 
the specific ulceration of the nostrils which characterises this 
malady may be slight, or so high up as to be invisible to the 
unassisted sight, though it is worthy of consideration whether it 
might not be practicable to make an examination of any suspicious 
case with the aid of a nasal speculum. 
I may, in conclusion, repeat an observation made in my last 
report, viz. that I have not “ any means of ascertaining whether 
the deaths from glanders in Kensington have been more numerous 
in proportion to the number of horses kept than in other parts 
of the metropolis;” the Metropolitan Board of Works, more¬ 
over, being “ unable to state whether the disease has been more 
prevalent in Kensington than in other parishes,” as they have 
“ no means of knowing the number of horses kept, the attention 
of the Board's officers being only called to those places upon 
which disease appears." 
We read, however, in the Annual Report of the Veterinary 
Department of the Privy Council, for 1879 (p. 35), that “ more 
cases of glanders and farcy have been returned in the metropolis 
than in any previous year; but that “ there is no evidence to 
show that the disease is more prevalent than in former years .... 
the increased number of cases returned being due to the activity 
of the executive in carrying out the Act of 1878, and Orders of 
Council relating to these diseases." 
There can be little doubt, I think, that the prosecutions which 
followed on the discovery of the cases at Colville Mews in April, 
and the expressed resolve of more than one police magistrate to 
inflict the full penalty of twenty pounds for offences under the 
Act and Order, operated as a stimulus in promoting the disclosure 
of cases by the owners of diseased horses. Be this as it may, 
