VIII. 



THE BACILLUS OF ANTHRAX. 

 [Fr., CHARBON ; Ger., MILZBRAND.] 



ANTHRAX is a fatal infectious disease which prevails extensively 

 among sheep and cattle in various parts of the world, causing heavy 

 losses. In Siberia it constitutes a veritable scourge and is known 

 there as the Siberian plague ; it also prevails to a considerable extent 

 in portions of France, Hungary, Germany, Persia, and India, and 

 local epidemics have occasionally occurred in England, where it is 

 known under the name of splenic fever. It does not prevail in the 

 United States. In infected districts the greatest losses are incurred 

 during the summer season. 



In man accidental inoculation may occur among those who come 

 in contact with infected animals, and especially during the removal of 

 the skin and cutting up of dead animals, when there is any cut or 

 abrasion upon the hands. A malignant pustule is developed as the 

 result of such inoculation, but, as a rule, general infection does 

 not occur, as is the case when inoculations are made into the more 

 susceptible lower animals rabbit, guinea-pig, mouse. Those who 

 handle the hair, hides, or wool of infected animals are also liable to 

 contract the disease by inoculation through open wounds, or by the 

 inhalation of dust containing spores of the anthrax bacillus. Cases 

 of pulmonic anthrax, known formerly in England as "wool-sorters' 

 disease," have been occasionally observed in England and in Ger- 

 many, and are now recognized as being due to infection through the 

 lungs in the manner indicated. 



The French physician Davaine, who had observed the anthrax 

 bacillus in the blood of infected animals in 1850, communicated to 

 the French Academy of Sciences the results of his inoculation experi- 

 ments in 1863 and 1864, and asserted the etiological relation of the 

 bacillus to the disease with which his investigations showed it to be 

 constantly associated. This conclusion was vigorously contested by 

 conservative opponents, but has been fully established by subsequent 

 investigations, which show that the bacillus, in pure cultures, induces 



