A NT II K AX 253 



ducts that have been of inestimable value in the prevention 

 and cure of many transmissible diseases. 



The organism. The anthrax bacillus is one of the lar-< M 

 of the disease-producing bacteria. The rodlike cells have 

 square-cut ends. In liquid media the cells appear in 

 chains of great length, iriviiiu r to the growth the appearance 

 of a tangled mass of cotton fibers. The growth is rapid on 

 all of the ordinary types of culture media. It grows under 

 both aerobic and anaerobic conditions. In the presence of 

 air, spores are formed quickly and in great abundance. 

 The spores are not especially resistant to heat, being killed 

 in a few moments at 100 C. They are, however, extremely 

 resistant to desiccation, and also live for years in water. 

 In the author's laboratory some spores were still alive after 

 eighteen years' residence in a sample of water collected from 

 a pond in a pasture in which a number of animals had died 

 of anthrax. The rapidity and profuseness with which 

 spores are produced when the vegetative cells are exposed 

 to air is of the greatest importance in the distribution and 

 persistence of the disease. 



The disease is said to be the most widespread, geograph- 

 ically and zoologically, of all the transmissible diseases. It 

 has been present in Europe for hundreds of years. In 

 1613 it is asserted to have caused the death of fifty thousand 

 people in southern Europe. In still earlier times the Arab 

 physicians called it "Persian fire." As the civilization of 

 Europe has spread to other lands, anthrax has been one of 

 its gifts, until to-day no part of the world in which stock- 

 raising is important is free from it. In this country it has 

 been reported in many of the States. 



The organism is one that is easily transported over long 

 distances in time and space, due to its resistant spores, 

 which are likely to be present on many articles of commerce, 

 such as hair, wool, bristles, and hides. Many of the out- 



