Glanders, or EQUINA, a malignant, contagious, and fatal disease of the horse and ass, due to the introduction into the body, or perhaps to development within it, of a virulent organism called the Bacillus mallei. Discovered by Dr Strick of Berlin, and almost identical with the microbe of tuberculosis, this organism is about th of an inch broad, but varies from th to th of an inch in length. This microbe, whilst infecting the whole system, shows specific effects more especially upon the mucous membrane of the nose, upon the lungs, and on the lymphatic system. Glanders and its modification Farcy are capable of transmission to man—on whom the virus increases in malignancy—to sheep, goats, dogs, the feline species, and even to mice and rabbits; pigs and fowls resist the contagion, and until lately cattle were thought to do so, but experiments have thrown doubt upon this.
In a typical case of glanders ulcers form in the nose, characterised by ragged and inflamed edges, discharging a viscid or sticky pus; a hard tumour forms under the jaw; the animal usually loses condition very rapidly; farcy buds and ulcers appear on the skin in various regions of the body; the limbs swell; and the animal dies a loathsome object. Any cause which interferes with the purity or integrity of the horse's blood or produces a deteriorated or depraved state of his system predisposes to glanders. It has been frequently developed in healthy animals by their breathing for a short time a close, impure atmosphere, and cases of this sort were thus produced amongst the horses of several cavalry regiments during their transport in badly-constructed, overcrowded vessels to the Crimea in 1854. Confined, overcrowded, badly-ventilated stables are almost equally injurious, for they prevent the perfect aeration of the blood, and the prompt removal of its organic impurities. Bad feeding, hard work, and such reducing diseases as diabetes and influenza also rank amongst the causes of glanders. Government by the Act Vict. 16 and 17, of date 14th August 1853, very properly compels the immediate destruction of every glandered horse. Glanders, like farcy, is dealt with by the Contagious Diseases Acts, 1878-86. Horses frequently have the disease in a chronic form, and if well fed and managed they might sometimes live and work for years in this condition: in the old coaching-days some stages were known to be worked by glandered teams. But no animal with glanderous ulcers or discharge should on any account be preserved; for, besides being perfectly incurable, the fatal disease is communicable not only to healthy horses, but also to human beings. The symptoms of glanders in man are very similar to those in horses, the disease in man being generally regarded as fatal. The only available treatment consists in good nutrition, tonics, disinfectants, and detergent applications. In 1889 one of two Viennese surgeons who had been experimenting with bacilli from a human case of glanders, and artificial cultures from these bacilli, was infected with this disease in its most malignant form, and died.