520 THE ANTHRAX BACILLUS 



but later it becomes restless, the respiration is accelerated, and there is fre- 

 quency of micturition ; the animal then huddles itself up and becomes drowsy, 

 the temperature falls to below normal (34 or 30 C.), coma supervenes and 

 the animal dies in a few minutes. 



B. Lesions. 1. Local lesion. At the site of inoculation there is more or 

 less oadema of the sub-cutaneous cellular tissue, the exudate is gelatinous, 

 somewhat red, very poor in leucocytes and contains numerous organisms 

 (gelatinous ffidema). The neighbouring lymphatic glands are enlarged, 

 ecchymosed, surrounded by an oedematous area and contain numerous 

 bacilli. 



2. The blood. The bacilli appear in the blood about 15 hours after inocula- 

 tion, and at the time of death the blood is literally swarming with them. 

 The blood is very dark in colour and of the consistence of pitch ; it coagulates 

 slowly and does not become red on exposure to the air. There is an hyper- 

 leu cocytosis, the red cells are deformed and in film preparations agglutinate 

 in irregular masses. The veins are congested. 



3. Internal organs. The anthrax bacillus is a strict ae'robe, and the ana- 

 tomical characteristic of the disease is the presence of the bacilli in the blood 

 capillaries. The parenchyma of the internal organs contains no bacilli unless 

 the latter have reached there through rupture of the blood vessels. The 

 glandular and epithelial cells are always found practically undamaged and, 

 contrary to what occurs in other infections, lesions of degeneration are 

 never seen. 



The spleen is swollen and diffluent : it contains a veritable felting of bacilli. 



Liver, lungs and glands. The blood capillaries are engorged with bacilli 

 while the epithelial cells are intact. In the bile a very few bacilli are some- 

 times found which have escaped from a ruptured blood vessel. In females 

 during the period of lactation bacilli may pass into the milk in a similar 

 manner (Straus and Chamberland). 



Kidney. The glomerular and inter-tubular capillaries are engorged with 

 bacilli : the epithelium is intact. Rupture of small blood vessels often takes 

 place and bacilli then pass into the tubules and so into the urine (Chamber- 

 land and Straus). 



Mesentery and intestine. The vessels of the mesentery and of the intestinal 

 villi are engorged with bacilli. 



Anthrax bacilli are present in the excreta of infected animals. Cinsa and Fenea 

 have shown that the numbers of bacilli increase with the duration of the 

 disease. In the intestine as in the soil the conditions are favourable for spore 

 formation. 



Muscles. Nervous system. Very few bacilli are found in the muscular 

 and nervous tissues, etc. 



Placenta. In pregnant females the bacilli do not pass through the placenta 

 so long as the vessels are intact ; but the vessels frequently rupture, and so 

 the bacilli are enabled to pass the placental filter and infect the foetus (Straus 

 and Chamberland, Perro^ito, and Toussaint). 



SECTION II. MORPHOLOGY. 

 1. Microscopical appearances and staining reactions. 



Under the microscope the bacillus presents three different appearances. In 

 the tissues of man and animals infected with anthrax it occurs exclusively 

 in the bacillary form ; in cultures, filamentous forms and spores are found 

 in additiori. 



