TREATME^JT. 215 



advise tlie administration of some agent with wliat are known 

 as antiseptic properties. Of these we prefer carbohc acid, 

 and some very recent experiments by three French veterina- 

 rians, MM. Arloing, Cornevin, and Thomas, quite confirm this 

 choice, which, some time previous to these results being made 

 known, had been used by us and pubhcly advised by members 

 of the profession generally. In these experiments the ' fresh ' 

 and ' dried ' virus of anthrax were severally operated on. It 

 was found that those agents which destroyed the dried, also 

 destroyed the fresh, but that the converse was not the case. 

 Thus the following destroyed the activity of the fresh, but had 

 no effect on the dried : a saturated solution of oxalic acid ; 5 per 

 cent, solution of permanganate of potash; 20 per cent, solution 

 of soda, chlorine gas, and sulphurous acid vapour. The fol- 

 lowing rendered inactive the ' dried ' virus : a 2 per cent, 

 aqueous solution of carbolic acid ; a solution of salicyhc acid, 1 

 in 1,000 ; nitrate of silver, 1 in 1,000 ; perchloride of mercury, 

 1 in 5,000 ; bromine vapour, strong solution of boracic acid 

 or sulphate of copper : while many agents usually credited 

 with considerable antiseptic properties had no effect on the 

 dried. 



Thus, as a fundamental point, we should start in all cases of 

 anthrax by the administration of one of the above : an aqueous 

 solution of carbolic acid, 5ss. of the acid in a pint of water three 

 or four times daily, is a very convenient mode of administra- 

 tion, and the agent is generally to be obtained everywhere with 

 little trouble. We should, at the same time, be inclined to use 

 inhalation of chlorine gas, generated in the ordinary manner, thus 

 endeavouring to impregnate the system with materials directed 

 to subduing the action of the poison. This, as we before said, 

 is to be followed by some stimulant to the emunctories to rid 

 the constitution of the effete matters with which it must now 

 be charged. To combat the disintegrative process, which is 

 such a marked feature of the disease, we would suggest 

 the exhibition of nutritive materials ; and an abundance of 

 these in the liquid form is probably best adapted to the cir- 

 cumstances, being most readily assimilable and also supplying 

 a great deficiency in the fluids of the body, which the 

 heightened temperature and drainage from the vascular 

 system must necessarily have rendered deficient in quantity 



