ELEVENTH ANNUAL YEAR BOOK— PART X 531 



hair, wool and horns, and it may be carried in hay from an infected 

 field, causing virulent outbreaks far removed from the original source. 



SYMPTOMS. 



The symptoms of anthrax vary both in species and different individ- 

 uals attacked, according to the location of the disease. Again variation 

 exists with apparently identical lesions. Some of the characteristics 

 noted are the suddenness of attack, serious general disturbances, high 

 temperature, digestive disturbance, brain complications and dysponea. 

 The manifestations may be classified as anthrax with visible localization, 

 and anthrax without the visible localization. The former usually re- 

 sults from infection of the skin and mucous membrane. These lesions 

 are called carbuncles and are circumscribed, cutaneous swellings, which 

 are at first hard, hot and painful. Later they become cold and painless, 

 with a tendency to gangrene. While ordinarily not quite as fatal as 

 internal anthrax, death may be said to occur in dogs and swine, the 

 animals suffer from fever, dysponea, difficulty in swallowing, together 

 with the immediate local effects. Death occurs sooner than when the 

 lesions are found on the skin. Moore further classifies this malady ac- 

 cording to course as peracute, acute, and subacute. 



Thus we have peracute anthrax or apoplectiform, when the subject 

 dies very suddenly, as if from apoplexy. The animal, without having 

 shown any signs of disease, suddenly drops down in the pasture and 

 dies in convulsions, or an animal apparently well at night is found dead 

 in the morning. 



The acute form, in the absence of external swellings, is the one more 

 often observed in cattle. The disease is ushered in with a high fever, 

 temperature 106.7° F. Feeding and rumination are suspended, chills and 

 tremors may appear, the subject is dull and stupid and may manifest 

 great weakness. In this form the malady runs a somjewhat slower 

 course lasting not to exceed twenty-four hours. Either of two courses 

 in the acute form may be observed. If the brain is affected the animal 

 becomes restless, excited, stamps, rears and bellows, finally dying in con- 

 vulsions. If the lungs are congested, there is difficulty in breathing, 

 wheezing, groaning, palpitation of the heart, syanosis and death from 

 suffocation. 



The subacute form is known as anthrax fever. While presenting the 

 same symptoms as the other forms, the disease lasts from one to eight 

 days with an average of forty-eight hours. The high temperature, the 

 congestion of the lungs or brain, together with intestinal disturbances 

 with colic, are especially well marked. 



It has been stated that milk from cows suffering from anthrax con- 

 tains Bact. anthracis, this would justify the enforcement of vigorous 

 measures to avert the danger when anthrax breaks out in a herd of dairy 

 cows. The first symptom noticed in a cow is the absence of milkflow 

 at milking time. In the first place it must be remembered that the ques- 

 tion is not whether the milk present in the udder of a cow that is dying 

 or is already dead of anthrax, contains the bacilli, but whether in the 



