292 ANTHRAX. 



which attended the earlier efforts to cause the disease arti- 

 ficially by feeding animals on bacilli and spores. When, 

 however, it was proved that the latter could cause the disease 

 on gaining entrance into the intestinal canal, this theory was 

 no longer necessary, and it is now known that in the great 

 majority of cases of the disease in sheep and oxen, infection 

 takes place from the intestine. It was thought by Pasteur 

 that worms were active agents in the natural spread of the 

 disease by bringing to the surface anthrax spores. Koch 

 made direct experiments on this point, and could get no 

 evidence that this was the case. He thinks it much more 

 probable that the recrudescence of epidemics in fields 

 where anthrax carcases have been buried, is due to persist- 

 ence of spores on the surface which has been infected by 

 the cattle when alive. 



The Disposal of the Carcases of Animals dead of Anthrax. It is 



extremely important that anthrax carcases should be disposed of in such 

 a way as to prevent their becoming future sources of infection. If 

 anthrax be suspected as the cause of death no post mortem should be 

 made, but only a small quantity of blood be removed from an auricular 

 vein for bacteriological investigation. If such a carcase be now buried 

 in a deep pit surrounded by quicklime, little danger of infection will be 

 run. The bacilli being confined within the body will not spore, and 

 will die during the process of putrefaction. The danger of sporulation 

 taking place is, of course, much greater when an animal has died of an 

 unknown disease which on post-mortem examination has proved to be 

 anthrax, but similar measures for burial must be here adopted. In 

 some countries anthrax carcases are burned, and this, if practicable, 

 is of course the best means of treating them. The chief source of 

 danger to cattle subsequently, however, proceeds from the infection 

 of fields, yards, and byres with the offal, and the discharge from the 

 mouths of anthrax animals. All material that can be recognised as 

 such should be burned along with the straw in which the animals have 

 lain. The stalls or buildings in which the anthrax cases have been 

 must be limewashed. Needless to say, the greatest care must be taken 

 in the case of men who handle the animal or its carcase that they have 

 no wounds on their persons, and that they thoroughly disinfect them- 

 selves by washing 'the hands, etc., in i to 1000 solution of corrosive 

 sublimate, and that all clothes soiled with blood, etc., from anthrax 

 animals be thoroughly boiled or steamed for half an hour before being 

 washed. 



