CHAPTER IX 



ANTHRAX 



History. This disease is supposed to be referred to in the book 

 of Exodus (9:10), the reading of which is as follows: "And it became 

 a boil breaking forth with blains upon man and upon beast." 



Homer's acquaintance with anthrax may have inspired these lines 

 (Iliad, B. L): 



"And first the beasts assailed he, the mule and ranging hound, 

 But soon at man his firebolt shot, smiting to the ground." 



The pestilence described in the CEdipus of Seneca is regarded by 

 some as a dramatic description of an anthrax epidemic. The first 

 victims are the domestic animals, one after another, until men and 

 all beasts are being hopelessly devoured by the insatiable anger of 

 the gods: 



The sluggish ewes first felt the blight, 



.For the woolly flock the rich grass cropped 



To its own doom. At the victim's neck 



The priest stood still, in act to strike; 



But while his hand still poised the blow, 



Behold the bull with gilded horns, 



Fell heavily; whereat his neck, 



Beneath the shock of his huge weight, 



Was broken and asunder yawned. 



No blood the sacred weapon stained, 



But from the wound dark gore oozed forth. 



The steed a certain languor feels, 



And stumbles in his circling course, 



While from his downward sinking side 



His rider falls. . . . 



The abandoned flocks lie in the fields ; 



The bull amid his dying herd 



Is pining; and the shepherd fails 



His scanty flock, for he himself 



Mid his wasting kine is perishing. 



The stag no more fears the ravenous wolf; 



