346 



THE BACILLUS OF ANTHRAX. 



animals injections beneath the skin or into a vein give rise to general 

 infection, and the bacilli multiply rapidly in the circulating fluid. 

 Death occurs in mice within twenty-four hours, and in rabbits, as a 

 rule, in less than forty-eight hours. The blood of the heart and 

 large vessels may be found, in an autopsy made immediately after 

 death, to contain comparatively few bacilli ; but in the capillaries of 

 the various organs, and especially in the greatly enlarged spleen, in 

 the liver, the kidneys, and the lungs, they will be found in great 

 numbers, and well-stained sections of these organs will give an as- 

 tonishing picture under the microscope, which the student should not 

 fail to see in preparations made by himself. The capillaries in many 

 places will be found stuffed full of bacilli ; or they may even be rup- 

 tured as a result of the distention, and the bacilli, together with 



Fio. 104. Bacillus anthracis in liver of mouse, x 700. (Flugge.) 



escaped blood corpuscles, will be seen in the surrounding tissues. In 

 the kidneys the glomeruli, especially, appear as if injected with col- 

 ored threads, and by rupture these may find their way into the urini- 

 ferous tubules. 



These appearances and the general symptoms indicate that the 

 disease produced by the introduction of this bacillus into the bodies of 

 susceptible animals is a genuine septicaemia. As in other forms of 

 septicaemia, the spleen is found to be greatly enlarged ; it has a dark 

 color and is soft and friable. With this exception the organs pre- 

 sent no notable changes, although the liver is apt to be somewhat 

 enlarged. In the guinea-pig an extensive inflammatory oedema, ex- 

 tending from the point of inoculation to the most dependent parts of 

 the body, is developed ; the subcutaneous connective tissue is infil- 

 trated with bloody serum and has a gelatinous appearance. This 

 animal comes next to the mouse in susceptibility, and cultures which 



