DISEASE-GERMS. 240 



An epizootic malady extensively prevails on the Continent of Eu- 

 rope, though fortunately but little known in this country, which is 

 sometimes designated " splenic fever," and sometimes " anthrax " or 

 " carbuncular " disease, while it is known in France as " charbon " or 

 " pustule maligne." In its most malignant form, it causes the death 

 of the horses, cattle, and sheep affected by it, in the course of four- 

 and-twenty hours. In the less severe form of anthrax disease, it oc- 

 casions great and prolonged suffering, even when final recovery takes 

 place. Both forms seem pi'opagable to man. Between the years 1867 

 and 1870, above 56,000 deaths from this disease are recorded as having 

 occurred among horses, cattle, and sheep, and 528 deaths among the 

 human population, in the single district of Novgorod in Russia. It 

 appears to be scarcely ever absent from France, and is estimated to in- 

 volve an annual loss of many millions of francs on the part of breeders 

 in that country, whole flocks and herds being carried off at once, and 

 their proprietors ruined. A mild epizootic of this type seems to have 

 prevailed in this country between 1850 and 1860 ; while the " plague 

 of boils," under which many of our human population (my unhappy 

 self among the rest) suffered during some part of that decennium, was 

 probably brought on us by infection from animals. Attention has 

 lately been drawn to a severe and often fatal malady occurring among 

 the "wool-sorters" at Bradford, which is pretty certainly a modifica- 

 tion of " splenic fever," communicated by the wool of sheep infected 

 with that disease. 



As far back as 1850 it was observed by two distinguished French 

 pathologists, MM. Bayer and Davaine, that the blood of animals 

 affected with splenic fever contained minute, transparent rods ; but 

 their fungoid nature and life-history were first worked-out a few years 

 since by a young German physician named Koch, whose account of it 

 was soon confirmed by Cohn, the eminent Botanical Professor of Bres- 

 lau, and afterward in this country by Mr. Ewart, all of whom " culti- 

 vated " the plant in aqueous humor, or some other organic liquid of 

 suitable character, kept at nearly blood-heat. They found the " rods " 

 to be produced by progressive extension from germ-particles of ex- 

 treme minuteness. At first they are simple tubes divided at intervals 

 by transverse partitions, but after a time minute dots are seen within 

 these tubes, which gradually enlarge into ovoid bodies that lie in rows 

 within the rods, and at last the rods fall to pieces, liberating the 

 germ -particles they included. The minutest drop of the fluid contain- 

 ing these germs, if conveyed into another portion of cultivated fluid, 

 initiates the same process of growth and reproduction, and this may 

 be repeated many times without any impairment of the potency of the 

 germs, which, when introduced by inoculation into the bodies of rab- 

 bits, Guinea-pigs, and mice, develop in them all the characteristic 

 phenomena of splenic fever. Koch further ascertained that the blood 

 of animals that succumbed to this disease might be dried and kept for 



