ANTHRAX. 293 



buncle is succeeded by septicemic general infection, leading 

 to death. Anthrax may be further transmitted from one 

 human being to another. In the nature of things such an 

 occurrence is rare, although it has been reliably observed. 

 Jacobi has reported four cases in which the disease was 

 conveyed by means of a hypodermic syringe that had pre- 

 viously been employed in a case of anthrax. 



The infectivity of malignant pustule was formerly denied, 

 and upon the basis of experiments in which the serous con- 

 tents of the pustules were inoculated in healthy individuals, 

 without the development of any reaction whatever. Such 

 experiments are, however, not conclusive, as the serous 

 content's of the vesicle, which surround the central eschar, 

 contain only a small number of bacilli. 



Natural Portals of Entry for the Anthrax-bacillus. 



(a) Skin. Infection through the skin is possible only in 

 the presence of a breach in continuity, however slight. In 

 human beings this mode of infection is the most common, 

 and particularly in individuals that come in contact with 

 anthrax-cadavers or constituent parts thereof. The course 

 of infection has already been outlined. At the point of 

 infection a carbuncle develops, and this leads either to 

 recovery or to general infection. 



(b) Digestive Tract. Spontaneous anthrax of herbivor- 

 ous animals almost always involves the intestine (pasture- 

 anthrax). If the herds graze on some meadow-lands in 

 certain districts (champs maudits), anthrax is sure to 

 occur among them. In Germany such regions exist in 

 some parts of Saxony and in the Bavarian Alps, in France 

 especially in the district Beauce, in Austria in the Hun- 

 garian lowlands, and in Russia in the neighborhood of 

 Novgorod. It is believed that the earth in these meadow- 

 lands contains spores, which are swallowed by the animals 

 in grazing. The question naturally arises, How are the 

 anthrax-spores brought to the surface of these fields ? 

 Pasteur, who was the first to occupy himself with this 

 question, found anthrax-spores in the earth of graves in 

 which years before anthrax-cadavers had been. buried. It 

 was his opinion that these spores are carried to the surface 

 from the depth by earth-worms. The worms swallow the 

 contaminated earth, later crawl upward to the surface, and 

 there deposit the spores with their excrement. Such a 

 possibility has been demonstrated experimentally, and that 



