DISEASES OF CATTLE 301 



ANTHRAX IN MAN (MALIGNANT PUSTULE, OR CARBUNCLE). 



Anthrax may be transmitted to a man in handling the car- 

 casses and hides of animals which have succumbed to the disease. 

 The infection usually takes place through some abrasion or slight 

 wound of the skin into which the anthrax spores, or bacilli, find 

 their way. The point of inoculation appears at first as a dark point 

 or patch, compared by some writers to the sting of a flea. After a 

 few hours this is changed into a reddened pimple, which bears on 

 its summit, usually around a hair, a yellowish blister, or vesicle, 

 which later on becomes red or bluish in color. The burning sensa- 

 tion in this stage is very great. Later on, this pimple enlarges, its 

 center becomes dry, gangrenous, and is surrounded by an elevated 

 discolored swelling. The center becomes drier and more leather- 

 like, and sinks in as the whole increases in size. The skin around 

 this swelling, or carbuncle, is stained yellow or bluish, and is not in- 

 frequently swollen and doughy to the touch. The carbuncle itself 

 rarely grows larger than a pea or a small nut, and is but slightly 

 painful. 



Anthrax swellings, or edemas, already described as occurring 

 in cattle, may also be found in man, and they are at times so ex- 

 tensive as to produce distortion in the appearance of the part of the 

 body on which they are located. The color of the skin over these 

 swellings varies according to the situation and thickness of the skin 

 and the stage of the disease, and may be white, red, bluish, or black- 

 ish. 



As these carbuncles and swellings m-ay lead, sooner or later, to 

 an infection of the entire body, and thus be fatal, surgical assistance 

 should at once be called if there is well-grounded suspicion that any 

 swellings resembling those described above have been due to inocu- 

 lation with anthrax virus. Inasmuch as physicians differ as to 

 treatment of such accidents in man, it would be out of place to make 

 any suggestions in this connection. 



To show that the transmission of anthrax to man is not so very 

 uncommon, we take the following figures from the report of the 

 German Government for 1890: One hundred and eleven cases were 

 brought to the notice of the authorities, of which 11 terminated 

 fatally. The largest number of inoculations were due to the 

 slaughtering, opening, and skinning of animals affected with an- 

 thrax. Hence the butchers suffered most extensively. Of the 111 

 thus affected, 36 belonged to this craft. 



In addition to anthrax of the skin (known as malignant pus- 

 tule), human beings are subject, though very rarely, to the disease 

 of the lungs and the digestive organs. In the former case the spores 

 are inhaled by workmen in establishments in which wool, hides, and 

 rags are worked over, and it is therefore known as wool-sorter's dis- 

 ease. In the latter case the disease is contracted by eating the flesh 

 of diseased animals which has not been thoroughly cooked. These 

 forms of the disease are more fatal than those in which the disease 

 starts from the skin. 



