ANTI-MICKOBIC TREATMENT OF ANTHRAX. 205 



the greatest precautions upon sterilized meat kept for several weeks 

 in an incubator at 87 C. (98.6 F.). The chemical product he 

 attenuated according to the methods advised by Stass-Otto, Brieger, 

 and after the more recent methods of Fischer. By the methods of 

 Stass-Otto and Fischer he succeeded in finding a substance which 

 possessed an alkaline reaction, and which produced toxic effects in 

 animals. A strictly pure article and an accurate chemical descrip- 

 tion of it could not be obtained on account of the smalluess of the 

 quantity which could be produced. By Brieger's method, cultiva- 

 tions upon sterilized yolk of egg diluted with sterilized water, it 

 was found impossible to obtain a toxic substance. 



The substance produced by Stass-Otto's method was used in 

 experimenting on frogs, mice, guinea-pigs, and rabbits, and that 

 obtained by Brieger's method on guinea-pigs and rabbits, and both 

 of them produced symptoms of intoxication. After a short period 

 of intoxication with increased action of the heart and accelerated 

 respiration the animals became somnolent, respirations deep, slow, 

 and irregular, assisted by the action of all accessory muscles of 

 respiration; pupils dilated ; temperature below normal; diarrhoea; 

 feces bloody ; speedy death. At the necropsy the heart was found 

 contracted, the blood was of a dark color, and ecchymoses of the 

 pericardium and peritoneum existed; there were no microorgan- 

 isms in the blood; no such toxic substance could be produced from 

 sterilized meat alone. The same author (" Zur Lehre der Sepsis," 

 Verh. d. deutsohen G-esellschaft f. Chirurgie, 1889) subsequently 

 succeeded in isolating a toxic substance from the bodies of anthracic 

 rabbits with the formula of C 3 H 6 N 2 , which he called anthraciu, 

 and to which he attributed the toxic symptoms in cases of anthrax. 

 Injected subcutaneously in rabbits it produced first restlessness, 

 rapid pulse and respiration, followed by somnolence, deeper and 

 slower respiration, diarrhoea, asphyctic symptoms, convulsions, and 

 death. These experiments leave but little doubt that the fatal 

 termination in cases of anthrax is due to the presence of ptomaines, 

 which are formed in the body in consequence of the action of the 

 bacilli upon certain complex combinations in the organism. 



Anti-microbic Treatment of Anthrax. 



Lande (Memoires de la Societe de Mtdecine de Bordeaux, 1889) 

 reports two cases of malignant anthrax saved by subcutaneous injec- 

 tions of carbolic acid. In the first case, a man aged twenty-seven 

 years, the upper lip was the seat of the carbuncle ; in the second, a 

 woman aged sixty-five years, the anthrax occupied the region below 

 the scapula. Both patients were very ill, low delirium and other 

 symptoms of toxaemia being present. The injections were made 



