Radical efforts at prevention must look to the extinction of the disease in the soliped, and its complete exclusion from Australia and New Zealand shows that such a result is not unattainable. In the English army where every glandered horse is at once killed and all pertaining to him disinfected, the disease is now virtually unknown except in the case of newly purchased horses or regiments operating in the field. In the French army which formerly lost 9 per cent. per annum from glanders, now under similar precautions loses but .5 percent. A law providing for the prompt destruction of every glandered soliped and the safe disinfection of carcasses, stables, harness, vehicles, utensils, fodder, litter and manure that have been exposed to contamination, if enforced, would soon eradicate the disease. But this law should provide efficient machinery for its enforcement, and, under suitable safe guards, an appropriate indemnity for the owner. With the use of mallein in all infected studs, as a diagnostic agent, the campaign can be made sharp, short and effective, instead of waiting as in the past for the slow development of occult cases.
The greatest and most fundamental error in veterinary sanitary legislation is the lack of a guarded indemnity for the animals killed. I strongly urged this fact on the committee of the N. Y. legislature in 1898 but to no purpose. A bill was passed forbidding all indemnity for glandered horses, and an impetus thus given to the spread of the disease is daily bearing fruit in our great cities especially, disastrous to the health of the horses, and a constant menace to that of humanity as well. The law makes it the duty of veterinarians to report all cases of glanders, but in great horse establishments such a report would stop the use of the whole stable, at a loss of thousands of dollars per diem, and put a sudden end to the employment of the reporting practitioner by the firm or corporation in question. The owner of one or two horses can afford to report, the loss of these and their work does not mean absolute ruin, but the owner of hundreds can not safely report. For owner and practitioner alike the alternatives are presented of obedience to the law with personal ruin on the one hand, and the surreptitious dealing with cases of glanders and the preservation of their livelihoods on the other. Whatever may be said as to the constitutionality of the law which destroys private property without compensation under the right of eminent domain, this is certain, that, as applied to animal plagues, this course is unjust, oppressive, and not only useless, but positively injurious, in that it drives the owners of animals to such courses as favor the spread of the plague in place of restricting it. To-day in New York City glanders is extensively prevalent, but large horse owners dare not adopt the legal measures for its extinction, with the certainty of great loss or ruin staring them in the face as the result. It should be further considered that any law is at once bad and vicious in its tendency which places before the citizen the alternatives of disobedience with profit, and obedience with loss or ruin. Such a law is the worst possible economy because in preserving the infection, it not only perpetuates the disease and its attendant losses for all time, but perpetuates forever the official expenses of keeping it in check, when a prompt extinction of the infection would once for all time abolish all loss and all outlay for surveillance.
Until provision can be made for the enforcement of our laws against glanders, all who handle horses should be warned of the danger of working about strange solipeds, or those that show suspicious symptoms, while they have any sores on the hands, and in case they must run any risk of contact with infection, to promptly wash hands and face in a solution of hydrargyrum chloride (1:2000), or carbolic acid (2:100). Animals of susceptible races (sheep, etc.) which have lived with glandered horses should be made to pass the mallein test before they can be put upon the market for human food.
In the high, dry altitudes of the Plains and Rocky Mountains, where most cases of glanders are mild and the majority recover, resort may be had to malleinization provided the patients are kept safely secluded from all other horses. In some horses with a native tendency to immunity, the oft repeated inoculation with 0.5cc. of mallein will render the animal refractory to the infection. Animals that have recovered from casual attacks show the same immunity. Among those who have experimented with mallein may be named: Straus, Schneidemuhl, Semmer, Bonome, and Vivaldi, Mowry and Michel, Schweinitz and Kilborne. Sacharoff apparently secured immunity in the horse by inoculation with virus modified by passing through the cat. Straus found that dogs which had received mallein intravenously could be made immune against intravenous inoculations, but, as Galtier had already pointed out, were still susceptible to cutaneous inoculations. Finger, experimenting on the rabbit, found that immunity only resulted after a long series of inoculations. The frequency of successful auto-inoculations in chronic cases of glanders in the horse would tend to discredit the alleged value of single injections of mallein, so that a long series is necessary if we would aim at good results.
Altogether attempts at immunizing the equine population generally, are not hopeful where it is dense, where they must be kept stabled, where the climate is moist and where glanders is deadly, or tends to persist in the chronic form for years in the same animal.
Considering the prevalence of the disease in a mild form on many of the western breeding ranches it is well to test all horses arriving from the west. The same applies to solipeds imported from abroad.
TREATMENT OF ANIMALS.
In the majority of the states the treatment of a glandered horse is prohibited by statute. Yet without providing definite machinery for the administration of the law, and without indemnities for horses disposed of, such laws are largely inoperative. On the other hand treatment is quite successful on the pastures of our dry table lands and mountains. It can, however, be sanctioned only when careful segregation and disinfection are provided for. Acute cases of glanders are hopeless in any region, but chronic cases and especially such as have the lesions confined to the skin are much more hopeful.
The unbroken nodules may be injected with carbolic acid solution (1:200), or permanganate of potash (1:60). The open sores on the skin may be treated with the same solutions, with mercuric chloride (1:2000 to 1:5000), with iodized phenol, with cupric sulphate (saturated solution), or with chloride of zinc. A primary nodule may be excised and the sore treated with antiseptics. When the lesions are very extensive the less poisonous agents should be made use of, or tincture of iodine may be substituted. The nose lesions may be treated by the weaker solutions of iodine or of iodized phenol.
Benefit also comes from a course of tonics the most successful of which have been arseniate of strychnia, binodide of copper, sulphate of copper, nitrate of baryta and sulphate of iron. The sulphites, bisulphites and hyposulphites and phenic acid are desirable adjuncts. An open air life at pasture is the ideal condition. Otherwise thorough ventilation, sunshine, moderate exercise and nourishing easily digestible food including grain are very important.