258 A MANUAL OF BACTERIOLOGY 



The spread of the disease in nature seems to result 

 from the ingestion of spores while the animals are feeding. 

 Although the bacilli without spores would be destroyed 

 by the acid gastric juice, this is not the case with the 

 spores, which are probably generally developed from the 

 organisms present in the bloody discharges of a stricken 

 animal, and are distributed by wind and flood, and in this 

 way may infect large tracts of pasture. Crows and foxes 

 may also serve to spread the disease by feeding on infected 

 material and disseminating the spores by the excreta. 1 

 Pasteur suggested that earthworms might bring the spores 

 to the surface in their casts from the buried carcases of 

 infected animals, but some experiments by Koch negatived 

 this. The non-sporing bacilli rapidly degenerate and die 

 in a buried carcase. 



Man seems to be relatively insusceptible to anthrax. 

 The disease is generally met with among butchers, 

 veterinary surgeons, shepherds, etc., and among those 

 who sort wool or hair or work with, or carry, hides, e.g. 

 glove-makers, tanners, porters, etc. The disease occurs 

 in two forms : the so-called " malignant pustule," a 

 cutaneous infection, not unlike an angry carbuncle, 

 occurring at the seat of inoculation, on exposed parts of the 

 body, such as the back of the neck, the face, wrists, and 

 hands ; and " wool-sorters' disease," a general infection, 

 severe and fortunately rare, through the lungs or stomach. 

 Rag-sorters are likewise sometimes attacked by anthrax, 

 but there is also a distinct " rag-sorters' disease " which 

 is stated to be due to a non-motile, non-sporing, non- 

 liquefying, capsulated bacillus, the Proteus capsulatus 

 hominis 2 of Bordoni Uffreduzzi. 



1 MoUet, Centr. f. Bakt., Abt. I (Orig.), Ixx, 1913, p. 19. 



2 Capsulated bacilli have been met with in many septic processes. 

 This group includes Friedlander's pneumo-bacillus, P. capsulatus 

 hominis, B. mucosus capsulatus of Fricke, and the B. coli immobilis. 

 They are met with in conditions associated with sepsis, pus production, 



