DISEASES OF THE OX AND SHEEP. 237 



cattle, and also the butchers who cut up some of the carcases, 

 were accidentally inoculated with the disease. 



We read in the Times of March 23rd, 1887, that the Chief 

 Constable of Cheshire reported the fact of a fresh outbreak of 

 anthrax in the township of Aston, a locality in which the 

 disease appeared afresh recently. Colonel Haraersley adds that 

 during the past week, of thirty-seven animals attacked thirty-six 

 died, and one was killed. 



As we have said before, anthrax is very often encountered by 

 the breeders of sheep and cattle in various parts of the United 

 Kingdom and on the Continent. When it affects human beings, 

 anthrax is generally known as woolsorters' disease, the usual 

 mode of infection being the inhalation of the spores adhering to 

 the fleeces of sheep and goats which have had the disease. It 

 also occurs as the so-called malignant pustule, brought about, 

 not by inhalation of spores, but as the result of local inocula- 

 tion proceeding from the handling of the infected wool, or as the 

 consequence of contact of any abraded part with the carcase of 

 an animal which has died of anthrax. 



In past times anthrax frequently raged as a malignant and 

 destructive epidemic in man and in the domesticated animals, 

 and was known at a very early date in history. It is mentioned 

 in the Scriptures as the grievous murrain and blains which 

 afflicted man and beast in the days of the captivity of the chil- 

 dren of Israel in Egypt, and we read in Exodus, chap. ix. 3, 

 that the murrain was then upon the horses, asses, camels, oxen, 

 and sheep. 



Anthrax also may have been the cause whereby the army of 

 Sennacherib the Assyrian met with total extermination in one 

 single night (2 Chronicles xxxii. 21)."^ It was described by 

 the writers of ancient Greece under the name it still bears, anthrax 

 — a term signifying a burning coal ; also by the Latin authors. 



* And the Lord sent an angel, which cut off all the mighty men of valour 

 and the leaders and captains in the camp of the king of Assyria. 



2. Kings xii. 35 : — " And it came to pass that night, that the angel of the 

 Lord went out, and smote in the camp of the Assyrians an hundred four score 

 and five thousand ; and when they arose early in the morning, behold, they were 

 all dead corpses." 



One cannot definitely lay much stress upon this suggestion ; but the idea is 

 not an improbable one, for the army may have encamped on a spot where the 

 germs of anthrax aboimded in profusion on the soil. 



