BACTERIUM ANTHRACIS 171 



The disease in animals is like that described for per- 

 sons, and the beasts do not develop anything in their 

 blood which can be used to treat human beings. Vac- 

 cines are not successful probably because the disease 

 in people is too acute to be amenable to a treatment 

 with mallein comparable to that described for tuber- 

 culin. 



BACTERIUM ANTHRACIS. 



Anthrax, or woolsorters' disease, or splenic fever, is 

 chiefly an acute infectious disease of animals caused 

 by the Bacterium anthracis or anthrax bacillus. It is 

 contracted by human beings through association with 

 infected animals, hides, wool, rags, and the like. It 

 is not uncommonly fatal to persons. It is expressed 

 as superficial abscesses, pustules, or carbuncles scat- 

 tered over the skin, or as softening of the spleen, 

 hemorrhages into the intestinal wall and some other 

 of the organs, even the brain. The woolsorters' 

 disease, or pulmonary form, occurs from inhaling 

 bacilli into the lungs. The bacteria also enter by 

 swallowing, or by w r ounds and cracks. However they 

 enter they spread by contiguity or by the lymph. 

 Their chief action is local and they do not enter the 

 blood stream except near death. They do not settle 

 in one place and remain there, but may pass from one 

 localization to another. While most of the noxious 

 effect is mechanical the anthrax bacillus seems to pro- 

 duce a little extracellular toxin which has the power 

 to attack tissue and cause the accumulation of edema 

 and blood. The softenings are due to the killing effect 

 of the bacillus poisons upon the tissues. This solvent 



