A. A. HOLCOMBE 
17 
GLANDERS AND FARCY IN THE ARMY. 
By A. A. Holcombe, I.V.S.U.S.A. 
To what extent these diseases exist among the public animals 
is a question I have been trying to approximately determine for 
more than a year. 
•j 
The ravages which they made during the war are, no doubt, 
well remembered by the older practitioners, and although at that 
time I had not considered Veterinary Medicine as among the 
professions from which I should select one for adoption, I well 
remember the public sales of many sorry-looking horses, which 
were disposed of at the close of the war, a great per centage of 
which, it is said, were glandered. J. C. Meyer, Sr., the eminent 
veterinary surgeon of Cincinnati, Ohio, incidentally reverts to 
the matter in speaking of the doctors (?) employed by the Gov¬ 
ernment as veterinary surgeons during the war. He says:* 
“ One of them declared that no glandered horse could be found 
in the whole army ; still, among the condemned ones which were 
sold, about a week or two later at auction, in Cincinnati, at least 
one third were affected with the disease.” 
The immense losses which resulted from spreading these in¬ 
fected animals throughout the country, as Dr. Meyer aptly re¬ 
marks, “ cannot be estimated.” 
That the disease should have been so generally prevalent in 
the army at that time is readily understood when the circumstan¬ 
ces attending the public animals are considered. 
The inspections made at the time of purchase were then even 
more imperfect than now, so that many animals were bought 
totally unfit’for the service they were expected to perform, while 
infectious diseases escaped detection, unless so palpable as to at¬ 
tract the attention of the most casual observer. Under such con¬ 
ditions glandered horses were undoubtedly frequently bought, and 
once in the army became foci from which the disease spread in 
every direction. The congregation of thousands of animals in 
corrals and at picket lines, with surroundings most defective as 
*American2Vet. Review, vol. III., p. 178. 
