ANTHRAX. 201 



DISPOSAL OF THE CARCASS. 



The surest method to render harmless all the bacilli which 

 exist in the carcass is burning, but cremation offers practical 

 difficulties, especially if several carcasses have to be destroyed. In 

 the case of an animal dying in a town, the local conditions may 

 render it best to adopt destruction by burning or by means 

 of chemicals. In such a case the carcass should be covered 

 with quicklime, and then taken, in charge of an officer of the 

 Local Authority, to a horse -slaughterer's or knacker's-yard, and 

 destroyed by exposure to a high temperature, or by chemical agents 

 especially in the vicinity of chemical works. Under the usual 

 circumstances of death occurring on a farm, fortunately the simple 

 plan of burial, with the addition of lime or other chemical agents, 

 is perfectly efficacious, and even without the use of chemicals if the 

 carcass has been left unopened, as the bacilli die rapidly if air is 

 excluded. 



Some experiments carried out by M'Fadyean clearly indicate the 

 importance of leaving the carcass unopened. 



On July 16th a sheep was infected with anthrax by feeding it with a 

 virulent culture. Five days later it died, and a microscopic examina- 

 tion of blood from the ear, immediately after death, showed very many 

 anthrax bacilli. The carcass was left unskinned and unopened until 

 July 27th, when the various organs were cut out of the chest and 

 abdomen and placed in a tin box. The box was then buried at a depth 

 of about two feet in garden earth, and left there undisturbed until 

 February loth, when it was exhumed. The organs had become con- 

 verted into adipocere, and this was thoroughly mixed up with water and 

 administered to a sheep. The sheep remained perfectly healthy. In 

 another experiment a rabbit was inoculated with anthrax on June 1st. 

 It died on June 3rd, and blood from the ear contained the bacilli. The 

 rabbit was left unopened for three days, and then placed in a flower pot 

 and buried in garden earth at a depth of two feet. It was exhumed on 

 February 15th. The tissues were all destroyed by putrefaction, and the 

 earth in contact with the bones was administered to a sheep without 

 conveying the disease or producing any ill effects. 



Thus, in the first experiment, the lungs and the intestines, in 

 which spore formation was mast likely to occur, were used as a 

 test, and in the second experiment the entire carcass. In both cases 

 there was destruction or disappearance of the bacilli, and these tests, 

 therefore, confirm in a very marked way the opinion that prompt 

 burial of the unopened carcass is a perfectly safe plan to adopt. 



