208 ANTHRAX. 



and tliey are very friable. The mesentery itself is in patches, 

 or throughout its whole surface dark in colour, its vessels being 

 very prominent. The large veins of the abdomen and body 

 generally are filled with a dark viscid tarry-looking blood 

 indisposed to coagulate, and staining not merely the lining 

 membrane of the vessels, but every tissue with which it has 

 contact. 



On opening the thoracic cavity we find the parietal and 

 visceral pleura presenting the same ecchymosed or generally 

 stained appearance as the serous membranes of the abdomen. 

 The- cavity usually contains, in varying quantities, coloured 

 fluid of different shades, according to the absence or amount 

 of hsemorrhage. The heart is soft and flabby in texture, the 

 cavities containing a moderate quantity of dark viscid blood, 

 and both pericardium and endocardium marked with large 

 dark patches of hemorrhagic effusion beneath the serous 

 membranes, which, in the interior of the cavities, in addition 

 to these blood-markings extending into the muscular tissue, are 

 uniformly stained with the altered blood. This same dark 

 hemorrhagic marking and uniform staining exist in the lining 

 membrane of tlic bloodvessels proceeding from the heart. In the 

 pericardial sac is also to be found a varying amount of bloody 

 coloured serous fluid ; while in the connective and adipose 

 tissue around the root of the lungs, and where the heart is 

 attached through the medium of the large vessels, there is 

 much effusion and infiltration of the characteristic exudate, 

 mingled with spots of a darker colour from blood-extravasation. 

 The lungs are uniformly, or in patches, congested with dark 

 blood ; and on being cut into, this, mingled with more or less 

 of a rusty coloured fluid, exudes. The mucous membrane of 

 both large and small air-tubes is infiltrated in hke manner, 

 and their lumen is occupied by frothy mucus. 



The large abdominal glands, the spleen and liver, and the 

 kidneys somcAvhat less so, give the most constantly occurring 

 and specific lesions in all animals ; when the spleen is most 

 extensively altered the liver is less so, and vice versa. The 

 obvious changes in the spleen are enormous enlargement, 

 deepening of its colour, and excessive friability. In weight it 

 may become equal to three or four healthy spleens ; its colour, 

 darker than natural externally, is on being cut into perfectly 



