EDITORIAL. 
387 
authorities any case of suspected or confirmed glanders or farcy which 
might come under their observation. But we do not know that this 
order found its way as yet out of the bureau of the Health Department. 
What is the result ? A man has an animal which shows the unmistakable 
characters of either chronic or acute glanders and farcy; he goes to his 
veterinarian, who advises him to have him destroyed, but instead of that 
the poor suffering brute is generally sent out of town—in the country— 
to give him a chance ?—yes—not of getting well, but of infecting other 
animals ; or, he will hear of a man who cures glanders, who cures farcy, 
and then another opportunity for the spreading of the disease. These 
are facts which occur often ; in fact, one similar happened but a few 
days ago in our own practice. What are we to do? The position of 
the veterinarian, in America at least, becomes quite delicate. Ignorant, 
or supposed to be, of these laws which require the obligatory declaration, 
he has no other alternative but to have the infected animal go away 
from his sight, and thus, to a certain extent, become an accomplice to 
the infection of others. 
It is wrong. If there is in the drawers of the Health Department 
such an order as the above mentioned, why are not veterinarians and 
veterinary practitioners informed of it ? Why are they not made obliged 
by law to report such a patient ? By health regulations a physician is 
obliged to report all cases of small pox, of scarlet fever, of all contagious 
diseases of his practice. By these regulations stringent means are en¬ 
forced to protect the health and life of people. Why not protect them 
as well against glanders and farcy ? Small pox, scarlet fever, etc., are 
curable; glanders and farcy are not. Let us have this law made public, 
not to one city, not for a single State, but for every portion of the United 
States. Let every owner of such a diseased animal understand that his 
horse must be separated, quarantined, watched if suspected, and de¬ 
stroyed if confirmation of his disease is certain, and let the veterinarian 
be the one who will be made responsible for the declaration to the health 
authorities if the owner will not do it of himself, and no doubt we will 
soon get rid of the greatest majority of cases of glanders and farcy, which 
are not only so dangerous to our horses (valuable or not), but above 
all, so fatally horrid to the people. 
