INFECTIOUS DISEASES OF CATTLE. 423 



reddened pimple which bears on its summit, usually around a hair, a 

 yellowish blister or vesicle which later on becomes red or bluish in color. 

 The burning sensation in this stage is very great. Later on, this pimple 

 enlarges, its center becomes dry, gangrenous, and is surrounded by an 

 elevated discolored swelling. The center becomes drier and more 

 leather-like, and sinks in as the whole increases in size. The skin 

 around this swelling, or carbuncle, is stained yellow or bluish, and is 

 not infrequently swollen and doughy to the touch. The carbuncle 

 itself rarely grows larger than a pea or a small nut, and is but slightly 

 painful. 



Anthrax swellings, or redemas, already described as occurring in cat- 

 tle, may also be found in man, and they are at times so extensive as to 

 produce distortion in the appearance of the part of the body on which 

 they are located. The color of the skin over these swellings varies 

 rding to the situation and thickness of the skin and the stage of 

 the disease., and may be white, red, bluish, and blackish. 



As these carbuncles and swellings may lead, sooner or later, to an in- 

 fection of the entire body and thus be fatal, surgical assistance should 

 at once be called if there is well-grounded suspicion that any swelling* 

 .ubling those described above have been due to inoculation with 

 anthrax virus. Inasmuch as physicians differ as to treatment of such 

 accidents in man, it would be out of place to make any suggestions in 

 this connection. 



To show that the transmission of anthrax to man is not so very 

 uncommon we take the following figures from the last report of the 

 German Government (1890). One hundred and eleven cases were brought 

 ti> the notice of the authorities, of which eleven terminated fatally. The 

 largest number of inoculations were due to the slaughtering, opening, and 

 skinning of animals affected with anthrax. Hence the butchers suffered 

 iii<>:4 extensively. Of the one hundred and eleven, thirty-six belonged 

 to this craft. 



In addition to anthrax of the skin (known as malignant pustule), 

 human beings are subject, though very rarely, to the disease of the 

 lungs and the digestive organs. In the former case the spores are 

 inhaled by workmen in establishments in which wool, hides, and rags 

 are worked over. In the latter case the disease is contracted by eat- 

 ing the flesh of diseased animals which has not been thoroughly cooked. 

 These forms of the disease are more fatal than those in which the disease 

 starts from the skin. 



BLACK-QUARTER. 



I. lack-quarter, black-leg, charbon tymptomatique of the French, 

 of the Germans, is a rapidly fatal infectious disease of 

 cattle, associated with external swellings which emit a crackling 

 Mmid when handled. This disease was formerly regarded identical 

 with anthrax, but the investigations of the past ten or fifteen years 



