Text book of veterinary medicine, Volume 4 (of 5)Law, James
Science
Text book of veterinary medicine, Volume 4 (of 5)
Law, James
Veterinary medicine
Until the early part of the present century glanders in man was not
traced to its origin in the soliped. Lorin in 1812 recorded a case in
which the human hand had been accidentally inoculated from handling a
horse suffering from farcy. Soon other cases were put on record by
Waldinger and Weith, Muscroft, Schilling, Rust, Sedow, and a host of
followers. Later Rayer, Tardieu, Virchow, Leisering, Gerlach and Koránye
have thrown much light on the subject.
_Etiology._ Man is manifestly less susceptible than the soliped,
considering the great number of exposures relatively to the victims. Yet
the infection of man is altogether too common to be lightly passed over.
The infection is almost always derived directly or indirectly from the
horse, yet a number of cases have been derived from the human being
through handling the dishes, towels or handkerchiefs of a patient,
dressing his wounds, or performing a necropsy. Other cases like that of
Dr. Hoffmann of Vienna, came from handling artificial cultures of the
bacillus mallei.
Glanders is preëminently an industrial disease, attacking persons of the
following occupations: hostlers 42, farmers and horse owners 19, horse
butchers 13, coachmen and drivers 11, veterinarians and veterinary
students 10, soldiers 5, surgeons 4, gardeners 3, horse dealers 2,
policeman, shepherd, blacksmith, employe at a veterinary school, and
washerwoman, 1 each.
The modes of transmission are essentially the same as in the animal. In
the great majority of cases there has been the direct contact of the
infecting discharges with a wound of the human victim. Handling the
diseased horse with injured hands, giving him a bolus and scratching the
hand on the teeth, examining the nose, sleeping under a blanket which
has been used on a glandered horse, removing the dressings of such an
animal or performing a post mortem examination on him are familiar
examples. The particles scattered by the diseased animal in snorting,
will infect the mucous membrane of the eye or nose, and all the more
readily if these are already sore or abraded. Infection of man by
ingestion has been discredited mainly because the carcasses of glandered
horses have often been eaten with impunity; but this may be largely
accounted for by cooking, the bacillus being destroyed by a temperature
of 131° F. Carnivora such as dogs, cats, lions, polar bears and prairie
dogs have been infected by feeding. Men also have been infected through
drinking from the same bucket after a glandered horse. After making full
allowance for the inimical action of the gastric juice, we must admit
that this has often failed, and there is the added danger of abrasions
of the lips, mouth and throat and of the entrance of the microbe into
the tonsillar follicles and gland ducts. Still other cases are recorded
of men sleeping in stables, but not handling horses, who contracted
glanders, presumably, through the dust borne bacillus inhaled. The
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account