104 BACTERIOLOGY FOR NURSES 



ANTHRAX 



Splenic fever or anthrax is a disease of cattle, 

 sheep, horses, and swine, caused by the anthrax 

 bacillus (B. anthracis). Man is also susceptible to 

 anthrax, contracting the disease by inoculation from 

 handling hides, wool, or the carcasses of animals 

 dead from anthrax. 



As early as 1850 several investigators declared 

 that in the blood of all animals suffering from anthrax 

 were to be found rodlike organisms, and that 

 healthy animals which were inoculated with this 

 blood speedily manifested the typical symptoms of 

 anthrax. 



It was not until 1876, when Robert Koch made his 

 first contribution to bacteriology, that these first 

 theories were proven by Koch's success in obtaining 

 a pure culture from which he made many genera- 

 tions of subcultures, and successfully inoculated 

 animals from the last cultures. It was at this time 

 that Koch made the first observations upon spore- 

 formation in bacteria. 



The Bacillus anthracis is one of the largest of the dis- 

 ease producing bacteria; it occurs singly or in short 

 chains, and shows a capsule which in the short chains 

 appears to envelop the whole chain in one capsule. 



