206 ANTHRAX. 



dead animals or tlieir offal have been interred; while we 

 must remember that what is capable of carrying the bacterium 

 is also capable of conveying the disease. Of course a careful 

 examination of the blood, with the object of detecting the 

 specific bacterial forms, is a point to be always insisted upon. 

 When these are capable of demonstration the diagnosis is satis- 

 factorily settled ; but we must never lose sight of the fact that 

 anthrax may exist without the detection of these organisms in 

 the general circulation being possible. This fact should also 

 always be among our considerations when we think of adopting 

 those- means we are disposed to consider most crucial and satis- 

 factory — the inoculation of some small animal ; for it is found 

 that when anthrax blood, in which bacilli could not be 

 detected, is inoculated into these creatures they die of well- 

 marked anthrax, and their blood actually swarms with the 

 organisms. 



MoEBiD Anatomy. 



General Features. — Although the discussion of the morbid 

 anatomy is not our particular province here, we must of 

 necessity give so much attention to this point as will render us 

 capable of detecting the necroscopic appearances usually pre- 

 sented to our observation. Though a point upon which we 

 would expect there could be little or no difference of opinion — 

 the tendency in cases of death from anthrax to a rapid decom- 

 position of the body — we find that regarding this, at the very 

 threshold of our examination, much difference of opinion meets 

 us : some observers, both foreign and English, giving it as the 

 result of their experience that no unusual tendency to destruc- 

 tive tissue-change is, as a rule, to be met with in the cadavers 

 of the victims of anthrax ; others again as distinctly stating 

 that early and rapid decomposition is always a marked feature. 

 Amongst the latter we must undoubtedly place ourselves, as 

 we have observed that immediately life is extinct decomposi- 

 tion is particularly rapid, especially if the weather be hot. In 

 truth, the crepitant swellings characteristic of one form of the 

 disease, and their emphysematous nature, are, as respects their 

 size, in large measure due to change occurring in the effused 

 blood during life ; this may be readily enough demonstrated m 

 cattle, where these are, as a rule, most extensive. 



