CHAPTER XIII 



ANTHRAX. 1 



OTHER NAMES. SPLENIC FEVER, MALIGNANT PUSTULE, WOOL- 



SORTER'S DISEASE. GERMAN, MILZBRAND; FRENCH, CHARBON. 2 



Introductory. Anthrax is a disease occurring epidemically 

 among the herbivora, especially sheep and oxen, in which 

 animals it has the characters of a rapidly fatal form of 

 septicaemia with splenic enlargement, attended by an extensive 

 multiplication of characteristic bacilli throughout the blood. 

 The disease does not occur as a natural affection in man, but may 

 be communicated to him directly or indirectly from animals, and 

 it may then appear in certainly two and possibly three forms. In 

 the first there is infection through the skin, in which a local lesion, 

 the " malignant pustule," occurs. In the second form infection 

 takes place through the respiratory tract. Here very aggravated 

 symptoms centred in the thorax, with rapidly fatal termination, 

 follow. Thirdly, an infection may probably take place through 

 the intestinal tract, which is now the first part to give rise to 

 symptoms. In all these forms of the affection in the human 

 subject, the bacilli are in their distribution much more re- 

 stricted to the local lesions than is the case in the T>X, their 

 growth and spread being attended by inflammatory oedema 

 and often by haemorrhages. 



Historical Summary. Historical researches leave little doubt that 

 from the earliest times anthrax has occurred among cattle. For a long 

 time its pathology was not understood, and it went by many names. 



1 In even recent works on surgery the term "anthrax" may be found 

 applied to any form of carbuncle. Before its true pathology was known the 

 local variety of the disease which occurs in man and which is now called 

 "malignant pustule" was known as "malignant carbuncle." 



a This must be distinguished from "charbon symptomatique, " which is 

 quite a different disease. 



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