ANTHRAX. 465 



selves in buried cadavers are exactly opposed to those 

 favorable to fructification or sporulation, and that in all 

 probability the majority of bacteria suffer the same fate 

 as the animal cells, and disintegrate, especially if the ani- 

 mal be buried at a depth of two or three meters. 



Frankel points out particularly that no infection of the 

 soil by the dead animal could be worse than the pollution 

 of its surface by the bloody stools and urine, rich in 

 bacilli, discharged upon it by the animal before death, 

 and that in all probability it is the live, and not the dead, 

 animals that are to be blamed as sources of infection. 



As every animal affected with anthrax is a source of 

 danger to the community in which it lives, to the men 

 who handle it as well as the animals who browse beside 

 it, such animals, as soon as the diagnosis is made, should 

 be killed, and, together with the hair and skin, be burned. 

 When this is impracticable, Frankel recommends that 

 they be buried to a depth of at least 1^2-2 meters, so 

 that the sporulation of the bacilli is impossible. The 

 dejecta should also be carefully disinfected with 5 per 

 cent, carbolic-acid solution. 



Of course, animals can be infected through wounds. 

 This mode of infection is, however, more common 

 among men, who suffer from the local disease mani- 

 fested as the malignant carbuncle, than among animals. 



Bacilli Resembling the Anthrax Bacillus. — Oc- 

 casionally bacilli are encountered presenting all the mor- 

 phological and cultural characteristics of the anthrax 

 bacillus, but devoid of any disease-producing power — 

 Bacillus anthracoides of Hiippe and Wood, 1 Bacillus 

 anthracis similis of McFarland, 2 and Bacillus pseudo- 

 anthracis, 3 etc. Exactly what relation they may bear to 

 the anthrax bacillus is uncertain. They may be entirely 

 different organisms, or they may be individuals whose 

 pathogeny has been lost through unfavorable environment. 



1 Berliner klin. Wochenschrift, 1889, 16. 

 * Centralbl.f. Bakt., vol. xxiv., No. 26, p. 556. 

 3 Hygienische Rundschau, 1894, No. 8. 

 30 



