This case of acute glanders in man illustrates that it is comparatively easy to distinguish the disease from symptomatically similar conditions. Before the pustular eruption appears the case is generally suspected to be typhoid fever, septicemia, croupous pneumonia or articular rheumatism. When the pustular eruption appears smallpox or a pustular syphilid is most commonly suspected.
The small number of cases reported in the literature of acute glanders in man has given rise to the opinion that the disease is rare and human susceptibility to infection small; but it is quite probable that fatal cases of glanders are reported under other causes of death, notably smallpox.
Among laboratory workers numerous deaths from infection by the Bacillus mallei have been reported because the nature of the infection was properly determined. It is to be presumed that the infectious material, fresh from the nose or farcy bud of a horse, is no less