SOME ANIMAL DISEASES 
9 
Glanders. 
By Dr. C. L. Barnes. 
If your horse has glanders, or if any of your animals are sick 
or dying with what appears to be a contagious disease, it is your 
privilege and duty to notify the State Veterinarian at the Capitol 
Building, Denver, who will visit your place without expense to you. 
Glanders is one of the oldest diseases known, its contagiousness 
being recognized as long ago as the seventeenth century. Glanders is 
caused by a specfic germ (Bacillus mallei) and affects horses, asses 
and mules. The goat, cat and dog sometimes contract the disease 
from living in stables with glandered horses. Pigs may contract the 
disease by inoculation. Cattle and chickens are immune. The disease 
attacks the mucous membrane of the nose, and may extend to the wind¬ 
pipe and lungs. When the lymphatic glands of the surface of the 
body are affected, the disease is known as farcy. The germs are found 
in the discharges from the nose and the farcy buds. The disease is 
transmitted to other animals, including man, by inoculation through 
wounds or mucous membranes. There are also many additional ways 
in which animals may be affected, such as common drinking troughs, 
feed boxes, mangers, hitch racks, harness, and any equipment used 
around an infected stable. 
Symptoms: Glanders may occur in the acute or chronic form, or 
it may attack the surface of the body in the form of farcy. The acute 
form of glanders begins with a chill, high fever, the mucous membrane 
of the nose is at first hot and dry, and soon there is a watery discharge, 
which later becomes bloody. Nodules and ulcers form on the mucous 
membrane of the nose and discharge pus. These changes in the nose 
may take place in two or three days. There is also an abundant 
diarrhea, and the urine contains a large quantity of albumen. The 
patients become very weak and rapidly lose flesh. 
The first symptoms of chronic glanders oftentimes are not easily 
recognized owing to the absence of distinct symptoms in the first 
stages of the disease. The first noticeable sign of the disease is a 
watery discharge from one or both nostrils, which later on become 
sticky and of a yellowish-gray or yellowish-green colored pus mixed 
with some b’ood coming from ulcers on the inside of the nose, and 
more particularly on the partition separating the nostrils. These 
ulcers are generally star shaped, and they may extend so deeply into 
the sentum as to cause perforation. 
When glanders affects the skin (farcy), one of the main symp¬ 
toms may be the swelling of a joint with engorgement of the limb and 
nodules may form along the line of the lymphatics. These nodules 
vary in size from a pea to a hen’s egg, and have a tendency to soften 
and discharge pus, after which they heal rapidly. New nodules may 
form, following the same course as the previous ones. 
Manner in which Glanders may be distinguished from Distemper: 
In both these diseases there is a discharge from the nose. In distem¬ 
per it is usually from both nostrils, while in glanders, as a rule, it is 
