FARM ANIMALS 143 



high fever and results in death within two or three 

 days while occasionally the course of anthrax is 

 slower. Anthrax exists as a continuous infection 

 in a number of areas in the southern states and 

 has long been known to thrive best in certain lo- 

 calities in the central states where extensive out- 

 breaks have occurred as a result of the infection of 

 water from tanneries and other sources. The 

 disease is perhaps most frequently transmitted by 

 means of infected hides used in tanneries and by 

 the agency of scavenger animals such as turkey 

 buzzards, dogs, cats, etc., which feed upon animals 

 dead of anthrax. In order to prevent the distri- 

 bution of the disease it is important that the ani- 

 mal carcass be buried or burned. This should 

 be done without previously cutting open or skin- 

 ning the animal since by such operations the 

 bacillus of the disease may be widely scattered. 



Blackleg. This disease, which is often con- 

 fused with anthrax, may be distinguished from it 

 by the fact that in cases of black leg the swellings 

 which appear underneath the skin crackle under 

 pressure with the hand owing to the development 

 of gas in the tissues, while the anthrax tumors are 

 entirely free from gas and show a consistency like 

 dough. Moreover, in cases of blackleg the spleen 

 is not enlarged as in cases of anthrax. Further- 

 more, anthrax is readily infectious for nearly all 

 animals while blackleg is not. Blackleg attacks 

 most frequently calves between ages of six and 

 eight months. The disease rarely appears in 

 calves under six months and is scarcely ever seen 

 in old animals. Man, horses, hogs, dogs and cats 

 are immune to blackleg. The prevention of 

 blackleg is accomplished by means of a vaccine 

 which has been used extensively throughout the 



