184 ANTHRAX. 



with our cattle and sheep, we must remember that this exemp- 

 tion is not enjoyed by equida^ over every quarter of the world, 

 or even through our own empire. It is also worth knowing 

 that liability or susceptibility of particular districts to special 

 forms of anthrax have been known to change. And, although 

 I cannot endorse what Mr. Fleming says, quoting from Reynal, 

 who, in speaking of the malady as it manifests itself in France, 

 remarks, that ' splenic apoplexy, after prevailing in a malig- 

 nant form for a certain time in a locality, becomes compara- 

 tively benignant,' I am yet satisfied that this acute form of 

 anthrax, splenic fever, after having existed for years in some 

 districts, has gradually given place to another form of anthrax, 

 most frequently the erysipelatous, and that where anthrax fever 

 existed in cattle, this succeeding anthrax erysi]3elas apjaeared 

 in sheep. This has been the result of my experience in more 

 than one district where anthrax, as an abiding disease, has 

 been known for two or three generations, and where splenic 

 fever was prevalent some twenty years since. 



Although investigations have been carried on both in this 

 country and on the Continent, with much energy and acumen, 

 to determme the nature of the poison of anthrax, modern 

 science has not yet been able to furnish us with irrefragable 

 evidence and facts capable of affording thoroughly satisfactory 

 answers to all our questionings. As to the general features of 

 the disease and the manifest blood and tissue changes, there is 

 little divergence of opinion ; but the rationale of the process by 

 which these are brought about continues a moot-point. These 

 alterations, formerly regarded as natural sequelse of simply 

 disturbed and perverted digestion and assimilation, are now 

 more generally allowed to be the result of, or intimately con- 

 nected with, the presence in the blood of certain minute 

 specific organisms, which of themselves are either the actual 

 cause, the agents which produce the actual cause, or the mere 

 carriers of it. The reception of this theory, feasible in most 

 points as it is, leaves much scope for further investigation ; 

 and when calling to our memory many instances of sporadic 

 nature in our own experience of anthrax, Ave confess they are 

 not in all particulars explained b}- it, though Ave Avould not Avitli- 

 hold our conviction that the Avcight of CAddence is undoubtedly 

 in its favour, and Ave confidently accept it as haemal parasitism. 



