DESCRIPTIONS OF PATHOGENIC BACTERIA. 159 



called wool-sorters' or rag-pickers' disease. 1 

 Infection of the skin may result from the bite 

 of insects which have fed upon animals sick 

 with anthrax and ingested the rods with the 

 blood, or from the handling of hides to which 

 spores cling. Anthrax of the lungs and in- 

 testine in the human subject is always to be 

 referred to spore infection. 



Buchner showed experimentally that the 

 inhalation of spores led to a general anthrax 

 infection without localization in the lungs, 

 while inhalation of the bacilli produced an 

 inflammation of the lungs. Cutaneous an- 

 thrax, which is strictly contagious, appears 

 only sporadically, or is encountered only in 

 individual cases during an epidemic. Spore 

 infection in animals is always dependent upon 

 the external conditions, for spores are formed 

 only in those places in a pasture-ground which 

 have been frequented by diseased animals, or 

 where the dead bodies of infected animals have 

 been interred. Stable epidemics are usually 

 traced to the hay gathered from such localities. 



What is sometimes regarded as the inherit- 

 ance of the disease may be simply intra-uterine 

 infection. A healthy placenta is not traversed 

 by bacilli, but passage may occur if the blood- 



1 In some cases of " rag-pickers' disease," however, not the an- 

 thrax bacillus but Proteus is concerned. 



