ETIOLOGY AND PATHOLOGY, 189 



existence ; and we imagine the recent advances in the study 

 of the ffitiology of specific diseases must have dealt severe 

 blows to the ' spontaneous generation theory,' wdiich has 

 always been supported by negative rather than positive 

 evidence. 



Though we wish to confine our attention specially to the 

 diseases of the horse, the character of that now under our con- 

 sideration demands that it be studied in connection with other 

 animals on account of the common susceptibility to the effects 

 of the poison producing the malady, and in no section is this 

 comparative study more to be insisted on than in the present. 

 For, having regard to its highly contagious nature, we cannot 

 place too much significance on the j)art which the bodies of 

 animals dying from anthrax have in its causation. To the 

 improper disposal of cadavers, etc., many of the outbreaks 

 may be traced, and if we accept the germ theory, all may be 

 attributed. The abiding enzootic character which anthrax 

 manifests must be due to the same cause. There seems much 

 to satisfy me that the bad name which many of our Highland 

 and mountain sheep-walks have acquired as thoroughly 

 unsound grazing-grounds, from the notorious prevalence of 

 anthrax, is unquestionably to be traced to the extremely care- 

 less and reckless manner in which the carcases of animals 

 dying from the disease are disposed of 



In many instances no attempt is made to bury these ; they 

 are simply thrown into some more obscure corner of the hill, 

 behind a rock, or into some guUey, where their bones may 

 be found whitening the ground months afterwards. 



When we consider the period which the spores of the 

 anthrax bacilli have been known to retain their vitality and 

 capability of producing the disease after being buried in the 

 soil, it is certainly somewhat startling to us, being cognizant of 

 the extreme indifference with which these matters have been 

 treated, that anthrax is not more prevalent in Great Britain. 

 It will now be seen that any medium by which the contagion 

 of anthrax may be conveyed from diseased to healthy animals 

 must be looked on as a factor in its causation. 



Pasteur credits the earthworm with doing much mischief, 

 by raising with its upheavals the spores of the bacillus ; for he 

 found the soil above the graves of animals which had died of 



