138 MICROBES, FERMENTS, AND MOULDS. 



mer. It is, in fact, in hot weather that the disease 

 is most prevalent. Animals may, however, contract 

 it even in their stalls from eating dry fodder on which 

 germs of these bacteria remain. 



Pasteur and his pupils performed an experiment 

 in the Jura in 1879, which clearly shows that the 

 presence of germs above the trenches in which car- 

 cases have been buried is the principal cause of 

 inoculation. Twenty oxen or cows had perished, and 

 several of them were buried in trenches in a meadow 

 where the presence of these germs was ascertained. 

 Three of the graves were, surrounded by a fence, 

 within which four sheep were placed. Other sheep 

 were folded within a few yards of the former, but in 

 places where no infected animals had been buried. 

 At the end of three days, three of the sheep folded 

 above the graves had died of splenic fever, while those 

 excluded from them continued to be healthy. This 

 result speaks for itself. 



Malignant pustule, which is simply splenic fever, 

 affects shepherds, butchers, and tanners, who handle 

 the flesh and hide of tainted animals. Inoculation 

 with the bacillus almost always occurs in consequence 

 of a wound or scratch on the hands or face. In Ger- 

 many, fatal cases of anthrax have been observed, in 

 which the disease has been introduced through the 

 mouth or lungs, as in the case of the sheep observed 

 by Pasteur. The human subject appears, however, 

 .to be less apt to contract the disease than herbivora, 



