THE CRAB FISHERY OF SCOTLAND. 145 



If these suggestions are followed, and too great expectations 

 not indulged in for a time, there is no doubt a future for our 

 crab fishery, which has the special advantage of having almost 

 virgin ground over a great part of the coast to work upon. But 

 no trash need be sent to London, to be swallowed up in carriage, 

 as has hitherto been commonly the case. The enormous 

 fecundity and tenacity of life of the crab, " or partan," will 

 readily keep up the supply. 



ANTHRAX AND ANTHRACOID DISEASES. 



By William Williams, F.R.S.E. and F.R.C.V.S., Principal of the New 

 Veterinary College, Edinburgh. 



Anthrax; charbon; gloss-anthrax; apoplexia — splenetica; car- 

 bunculo contagiosa, &c. (L.); charbon; chancre a la langue; mal 

 de sang; sang derate; typhomie; fievre putride, &c. (F.); miltz- 

 brand ; niiltzbrand-fieber ; petechial typhus ; pestfieber (C.) ; 

 carbone ; febbre carbonculara, &c. (I.) ; apoplexy of the spleen; 

 malignant sore throat; known in India as Loodiana disease, and 

 in South Africa as horse sickness; in sheep as splenic apoplexy; 

 in America, splenic fever, Texan fever, trembles, &c. 



The term charbon is applied by the French veterinarians for 

 the reason that the regions of the body whcKe the disease is 

 localised are coloured black. Anthrax (a burning coal) is 

 now adopted by most writers as a generic term, and applied 

 to what is otherwise known as splenic fever, but it throws 

 no light on the nature of the disease, as others, septic and 

 putrefactive in their nature, present a similar appearance of the 

 blood. 



Definition. — The disease consists in a special and primitive 

 alteration in the blood, in which an organism termed the Bacillus 

 anthracis is rapidly developed and propagated, and is more special 

 to the herbivora and birds. Inoculation witTi the blood or tissue 

 of animals which have died from it induces, both in man and 

 other animals, a malignant form of inflammation called " malig- 

 nant pustule." For this reason anthrax is looked upon, and 

 described, as a truly contagious disease. 



Anthrax appears at all seasons, but principally in the spring 

 or during summer and autumn. It occurs either as a sporadic, 

 enzootic, or epizootic disease, attacking animals of any age — the 

 fat, vigorous, plethoric, as well as the lean, feeble, and languid. 

 It is a remarkable fact that wounds, simple in themselves, in 

 cattle subjected to the influence called charbon, although not 

 suffering from it, often become mortal. 



VOL. XX. K 



