292 CLINICAL BACTERIOLOGY. 



possess a considerable degree of immunity to anthrax. If, 

 however, on the one hand, the high temperature of birds is 

 reduced artificially ; or if, upon the other hand, the low 

 temperature of reptiles is elevated artificially, these animals 

 react precisely like other animals that is, they succumb to 

 inoculation with anthrax. Pigeons may also be rendered 

 susceptible to anthrax-infection by starvation. 



Occurrence of Anthrax in Human Beings. Human 

 beings are infected, as a rule, through contact with animals 

 suffering from anthrax, and with the cadavers of those dead 

 of the disease. Not only the fresh cadaver is infectious, 

 but also, owing to the presence of spores, which develop 

 rapidly in summer with unobstructed access of oxygen, 

 every individual portion of the body wool, hair, horns, 

 etc. -even after the lapse of a long time. For. this reason 

 tanners are exposed to danger in manipulating the skins of 

 animals dead of anthrax. Even after the hide has been 

 tanned, the spores are not always destroyed with certainty, 

 and shoemakers, furriers, and harness-makers have been 

 known to be infected by means of such leather. Workers 

 in horsehair, turners of horn, brush-makers, dealers in 

 hides, etc., are likewise exposed to the danger of infection 

 with anthrax in so far as the raw material with which they 

 work is derived from animals suffering from anthrax. The 

 following instructive example, in this connection, has been 

 reported by Einike : An ox dies of anthrax. Two indi- 

 viduals who partake of its meat die of the same disease. 

 The hide of the animal, after it has been macerated for a 

 time in a small lake, is used by a harness-maker for making 

 halters. This man is attacked by anthrax. The two 

 horses that wear the halters likewise succumb to this 

 disease. Of a herd of sheep that bathe in the small lake 

 mentioned twenty are attacked by anthrax. 



The transmission of anthrax from animals to human 

 beings may further be effected by certain varieties of flies 

 that possess a stiff and pointed sting (stomoxys, glos- 

 sina, ixodes). In the bodies of such insects as have fed 

 upon anthrax-cadavers anthrax-bacilli have been repeatedly 

 demonstrated. 



Human beings are not especially susceptible to anthrax. 

 For this reason only a local lesion generally forms at first 

 the so-called malignant pustule (anthrax-carbuncle) which 

 frequently terminates in recovery. In other cases the car- 



