ON FEVERS AMONGST HORSES, CATTLE, ETC. 245 



In pursuing our observations on the causes of anthrax in 

 iinimals, it is not a difficult problem to understand that in con- 

 nection with the soil there is present a remarkable power of 

 disinfection, and manurial substances or decomposing matter are 

 appropriated to the wants of vegetation, &c., up to a certain point. 

 It is possible also that the presence or supply of decomposing 

 matter may be in considerable excess, when the chemical pro- 

 perties are neiitralised, and the vegetation growing thereon 

 becomes saturated with putrescent elements derived directly from 

 the surcharged soil. The deleterious properties of the soil are 

 also intensitied by heat. As the moisture is dried up, and the 

 ground becomes parched on the surface, the poison which 

 remains is concentrated, and whether it ascends as such into the 

 organism of the plant, or as mephitic vapour, it is capable of 

 transmitting to the blood of animals grazing thereupon a poison 

 wdiich is not only the result of decomposition or putrescence, but 

 also communicates to the circulating fluid the same process or 

 condition. Hence we distingiiish those forms of anthrax fevers, 

 common to marshy localities, as malignant or septic, because 

 they are formidable maladies, being rarely curable, and reducing 

 the body of the sufferer to a mass of putrefaction almost during 

 life, and besides it is not confined to cattle and sheep, horses 

 being quite as liable, and, through one or other, mankind also. 



Just as the paludal fevers of the human race are found on 

 some of the soils or localities of a high ground, so do we find 

 anthrax among domestic animals. As the intense heat of 

 summer may develop the malignant form on marshy lands, so 

 may it give rise to splenic apoplexy in cattle and sheep on 

 calcareous soils at considerable altitudes, and on strong and re- 

 tentive soils, by no means liable to floods, the same conditions 

 may develop black quarter among young stock. Similar results 

 exist in many of the so-called "home pastures" and rich meadows 

 of the valleys, where, as in the instances previously cited, the 

 causes are almost identical, but very probably not so intense, 

 the differences being dependent upon the quality of tlie manurial 

 elements within the soil, as well as the constitution of the 

 vegetation growing upon it. Marshy lands receive the former 

 in excessive quantities by successive floods, and the constant 

 presence of moisture renders such soil a prolific locale, under 

 solar heat, of miasms which may pollute the blood through the 

 process of respiration, while vegetati(jn may either absorb the 

 poison more rapidly during clrought or become coated with 

 putrescent substances ; other lands, on the contrary, are heavily 

 manured by artificial means, and it appears to make little 

 difference whether the manure is home made or of the artificial 

 kind, for after repeated trials and change the disease still shows 

 itself at the usual seasons of the year. 



