HISTORY AND GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION.—Under the name of malis Aristotle describes a fatal disease of asses, supposed to have been identical with the malleus humidus of Vegetius Renatus and other writers of early Christian times, and with the cymoira of other early Roman writers. This malady was characterized by swelling of the submaxillary glands and discharge from nose and mouth. From the fourteenth century onward glanders is reported from different parts of Europe at frequent intervals; thus in 1320 in England (Rogers); in 1640 in Badajoz, brought by Portugese horses (Villalba); in 1686 at Treves (Eggerdes); again in 1776 in Southern France (Lafosse); in 1794 in Bavaria (Plank); in 1796 in Franconia (Laubender); and in 1798 in Piedmont (Toggia). At the beginning of the present century this affection was very widely prevalent in Great Britain, the chronic cases being habitually worked in stage-coaches, but of recent years, when it has been made criminal to expose or use a glandered horse, the malady has to a great extent disappeared. To-day glanders is almost coexistent with the distribution of the domesticated equine family, yet its prevalence bears a direct relation to the facilities for infection (horse-traffic, war, preservation of the diseased, confinement in close stables, ships, etc.), and some countries appear to be entirely free from the affection. Thus, Krabbe gives the yearly losses per 100,000 horses for the principal countries of Europe and Algiers as follows: Norway, 6; Denmark, 8.5; England, 14; Sweden, 57; Wurtenberg, 77; Prussia, 78; Saxony, 95; Belgium, 138; France (army), 1130; Algeria (army), 1548. The losses in Prussia more than doubled after the Franco-German War; thus, in 1869-70 they were 966, and in 1873-74, 2058. In Bavaria they rose in the same period from 173 to 390 (Hahn). In Lisbon, Portugal, glanders was unknown for the thirty years preceding the Peninsular War, whereas after the war it proved a veritable scourge (Saunier). Charles Percivall, during an eight years' residence at Meerut and Cawnpore, Hindostan, saw not a single case of glanders, and so late as 1275, Fleming claims an entire immunity for India; yet in 1877 complaints were numerous of the very general prevalence of the disease in Upper India especially, while in 1879 the campaign in Afghanistan was seriously affected by its ravages. Climate appears to have little influence. The disease is virtually unknown in the island of Bornholm with 7000 horses, and in the Faroes and Iceland with 35,000, while it is quite frequent in Sweden. It is unknown in Australia, but is very prevalent in China, South Africa, Abyssinia, and Algiers, and but little known in Asia Minor, Arabia, and Egypt.

In the United States as in Europe the disease has mainly concentrated itself in the large cities in times of peace, and spread widely on the advent of war. It is alleged that it first entered Mexico in 1847 with the American cavalry, though with the horses kept in the open air it failed to gain a wide extension. The horses and mules drawn into the Union armies in 1861 brought infection with them, and soon the disease was most prevalent and destructive, not only in the ranks, but in every State in which the armies operated. John R. Page says the first case he saw in the Confederate army was a captured Federal troop-horse on the retreat from Manassas, and that the breaking down of the Confederate cavalry in the last two years of the war was mainly due to glanders. At the close of the war the sale of army horses distributed the infection widely through all the States, North as well as South. Every year in a country district in Western New York I see several cases of glanders, and occasionally a whole stud is carried off through an infected purchase. In other States the case is no better. In Pennsylvania, Ohio, Illinois, and Michigan cases are constantly seen in the country districts, and in the three last-named States five human victims have been reported within a short period. In Connecticut the same is true, and the disease made one human victim in Waterbury in 1879. In the large cities the case is still worse. Liautard of New York in 1878, in a single visit to one car-stable, condemned 8 horses, in another stable 18, and in a third, at two visits, 45, while a fourth had lost no fewer than 200 horses in the course of one year from glanders. In the Troy (N.Y.) car-stables the malady prevailed from 1875-77, most of the subjects suffering from chronic farcy, until in the latter year, by my advice, these propagators of contagion were destroyed. In Springfield, Mass., in 1879, the disease assumed such alarming proportions that it was vigorously suppressed by a city ordinance enjoining summary slaughter. These are but indications of what is happening all over the country, entailing losses of many hundreds of thousands yearly as well as an enormous risk to humanity.

The following table gives the number of cases occurring in the equine family in two of the principal countries of Europe in the last few years:

Cases of Glanders in— Great Britain. Germany.
18788882753
18791367
188020481941
188117101774
188213891838

As both countries systematically suppress this disease through their veterinary sanitary officials, it cannot be doubted that the figures for America, if obtainable, would be relatively higher.

Glanders prevails especially in horses, asses, mules, and other solipedes, and is communicated by inoculation to all domestic animals except the genus Bovis. In the sheep and goat the receptivity is considerable, and the disease may prove fatal in fifteen days (Gerlach) or it may be delayed for seven weeks (Bollinger). The Carnivora (dogs, cats, lions, polar bears) contract the affection by eating diseased flesh, as do some rodents (prairie-dogs, rabbits, guinea-pigs, mice), and, by administration, solipedes. Swine contract the disease by inoculation (Gerlach, Spinola), though in these and in the dog the constitutional symptoms are usually slight and recovery may follow the local affection.

The susceptibility of man is doubtless less than that of the solipedes, judging from the few cases of glanders compared with the frequent exposures, yet when once established in the system it can hardly be said to be less malignant or fatal.

ETIOLOGY.—The one known cause of glanders is contagion, and the recent experiments of Capitan and Charrin in France and of Schütz and Löfler in Germany, demonstrating that the bacillus of the glanderous deposits is the one essential cause of the disease, effectually dispose of any claim of its spontaneous origin. Glanders can no longer be considered spontaneous, further than that its germ is now proved capable, like that of anthrax, of survival and multiplication out of the animal economy, so that infection may come from other objects than a sick animal; and it may even yet appear that the bacillus, living at times as a harmless saprophyte out of the animal body, may acquire deadly properties under certain conditions of the environment. At the same time, the most extensive acquaintance with glanders and the broadest generalizations from known facts do not warrant the assumption of the extension of the disease by the growth of the bacillus out of the living body, unless it be on the rarest possible occasions, while the soundness of extensive countries (Australia, New Zealand) for a century or more speaks strongly against any frequent development from a harmless saprophyte.

To the same effect speak the experiences of the English army. At the beginning of the century, under the teaching of Coleman, most cases were attributed to lack of stable care, and extensive experiments were made in the treatment of the disease, with the result of a very high mortality from this cause. Now, when contagion is looked on as the main or sole cause, and all suspected horses in the army are promptly destroyed, the disease is only seen in recently-purchased animals or after the inevitable exposures of a campaign.1 In the French army the doctrine of the non-contagiousness of chronic glanders led to a greater prevalence of this disease than in any other country of Europe. Prior to 1836 it was about 90 per 1000 per annum, whereas now, under the doctrine of contagion and a corresponding practice, glanders kills but 2 per 1000 per annum (Rossignol).