CHAPTEE XVIII. 



ANTHRAX. 



SYNONYMS : Contagious Carbuncle ; Charbon ; Milzbrand ; 

 Malignant Pustule. 



HISTORY. As a disease among animals anthrax has been 

 known since the earliest records of history. The contagiousness 

 of this disease has been recognized since the beginning of the 

 eighteenth century. During the first part of this century it was 

 described as a blood disease (Maladie du sang. Blutseuche der 

 Schafe). Heusiuger, in his classical work (Die Milzbrandkrank- 

 heiten der Thiere und des Menschen, Erlaugen, 1850), declared 

 anthrax to be a malarial neurosis. In the year 1855 Polleuder 

 (" Mikroskop. und Mikrocheni. Untersuchungen des Milzbrand - 

 blutes, etc.,' 7 Casper' s Vierteljahrsschriftf. ger. u. off. Medizin, Bd. 

 viii. S. 103) published his discoveries, which inaugurated a new era 

 in the study of anthrax. As early as 1849 he had discovered in 

 the blood of cattle suffering from anthrax a mass of innumerable 

 fine rod-like bodies, which appeared to be of a vegetable nature 

 and resembled vibriones. Brauell ("Versuche und Untersuch- 

 ungen betreifend den Milzbrand des Menscheu und der Thiere," 

 Vlrchow's Archiv, No. xi., 1857) found the same organisms in the 

 blood of men, horses, and sheep which had died of anthrax. 

 He also found the same bodies during life in the blood of the 

 diseased animals. 



Delafond (Recueil de med. vet., 1860, p. 726) considered this 

 parasite as a kind of leptothrix. 



In 1863 appeared the work of Davaine (Compt. rend, de VAcad. 

 des Sciences, t. Iviii. p. 22) wherein he pronounced these rod-like 

 bodies to be bacteria, and later he called them bacteridia. He 

 believed them to be the cause of anthrax, as the disease could not 

 be propagated with blood which did not contain them. 



Through the labors of Naegeli and Bollinger (Zur Pathologie 

 des Mikbrandes. Miincheu, 1872) and others the microorganism 

 of anthrax finally found a permanent place as the bacillus anthracis 

 among the schizomycetes. 



The first positive accounts of the disease in man we owe to 

 Foamier, Montfils, Thomassin, and Chabert, who published their 

 description between the years 1769 and 1780. Fournier first dis- 



