438 
,T. P. KLENCH. 
ing sand from the bed of the crock one mile and a half dis¬ 
tant from the tunnel, where mason work was going on. These 
horses had to cross that creek six times at every trip, making 
ten trips a day, so that the legs of these animals were constantly 
wet. I noticed that in less than six months most of these 
horses showed suspicious symptoms, some of them getting 
confirmed glanders in a proportionally short time, neaily all 
commencing with a farcinous swelling of the hind legs. It can 
reasonably be supposed that the influence of the weather and the 
frequent wading through the water caused a disturbance in the 
perspiration of the skin, in the functions of the mucus membiane 
of the respiratory organs, and also in the vital fluids in general, 
and thus laid the foundation of the incurable disease of glanders. 
But, besides these evident causes of glanders amongst our 
horses, the sanitary condition of these must be regarded as a very 
defective one, as glanders had been raging amongst the company’s 
horses for several previous years, and then direct contagion had 
been spreading the disease amongst those recently bought. The 
directors of the company were well aware of this danger, and 
gave orders to all the foremen along the road to separate and 
send immediately to the hospital every horse that had running 
from one or both nostrils, in order to diminish as much as pos¬ 
sible the chances of direct contagion. The horses were kept in 
a very good condition ; so I am convinced that no case of glan¬ 
ders during my time of service can be attributed to general 
debility or poor feeding, but that all of them were caused either 
by direct contagion or the influences of the weather, or the 
passage from chronic catarrh or old distemper or other chronic 
disease, grave enough to cause a^disturbance in the vital fluids of 
the animal or to diminish the latter’s strength. 
The sanitary condition of our horses had always been closely 
watched by the county veterinary surgeon in Luxembourg. Let 
me remark here that in all European countries the sanitary laws 
are very strictly enforced, and that a severe punishment would 
surely await the veterinary surgeon who would undertake to treat 
glandered horses without first notifying the Government of it. 
At various times my infirmary was inspected by the veterinary 
surgeon of the respective county, and I had to give sufficient 
