156 



Division of Animal Industry 



Honolulu, Hawaii, July 3, 1917. 



Board of Commissioners of Agriculture and Forestry, Honolulu, 

 T. H. 



Gentlemen : — I beg to submit herewith my report on the work 

 of the Division of Animal Industry for the month of April, 1917: 



Anthrax in the Territory of Haumi. 



On April 13 a letter was received from the manager of the 

 Princeville Plantation Company, at Hanalei, Kauai, stating that 

 about fifty head of cattle had died since the beginning of the 

 month, and that the disease had been diagnosed by the Deputy 

 Territorial A^eterinarian as hemorrhagic septicemia. 



The manager further stated that he had only taken charge of 

 the ranch on April 1, and that he had since learned that at least 

 18 head of cattle had died previous to that time, and that the 

 carcasses of these animals had been skinned and left to rot in the 

 pasture where they were found. 



The writer left Honolulu April 16 and arrived at Princeville 

 Plantation on the forenoon of the 17th. In the meantime the 

 Deputy Territorial \'eterinarian had submitted a specimen of the 

 blood from one of the diseased animals to the local Board of 

 Health doctor, who had pronounced the disease anthrax. 



Shortly after arrival it was reported that a heifer had just died, 

 and a post-mortem examination was decided upon. The black, 

 tarry blood, the swollen spleen and the extensive gelatinous 

 hemorrhagic exudations under the skin and in the body cavities 

 left no doubt as to the diag'nosis, and subsequent microscopic 

 examination confirmed that the disease was anthrax. 



Nature and Cause of Anthrax. 



There is probably no infectious disease so well known and so 

 widely spread over the world as anthrax. Historians claim that 

 anthrax constituted one of the seven plagues of Egypt ; and many 

 of the worst plagues, which devastated Europe and other coun- 

 tries during the middle ages and up to this century, can, from 

 the description, have been no other disease than anthrax. As 

 early as 1836 the transmissibility of the disease was proven by 

 inoculation as well as by feeding of anthrax blood. In 1863 

 Davaine proved the presence in the blood of the minute, rod- 

 shaped bodies which are known as the anthrax bacilli. 



