94 SUMMARY OF CURRENT RESEARCHES RELATING TO 



Further Observations on the Etiology and Prevention of 



Anthrax.* — M. Pasteur quotes a note relating to anthrax written by 

 a former ambassador of Saxony at Paris (Baron Seebach) to M. Tis- 

 serand, as long ago as 1865, as remarkably confirming the conclusions 

 recently arrived at as to the nature of the disease. 



This note states that on the land belonging to the writer a tenant 

 began in 1845 to introduce improvements in the cultivation. With 

 that view he selected as soil suitable to be spread over the ground 

 used during the winter for cattle-pens — which was destined again to be 

 removed, after being enriched by the presence of the beasts, to form 

 manure — the earth from a strip of land which had been for years used to 

 bury carcases in. This soil was spread over half the space of the pens, 

 and on this half nearly 900 oxen were placed. The sheep were placed 

 close to them, and the rest of the oxen at the other end. A few days 

 after this, in one night two of the oxen died, and the next day six more 

 were lost. On the following morning forty-five were found dead, besides 

 a sheep in the neighbouring enclosure. The loss continued. At last 

 the earth was removed, the enclosure cleaned out, and a layer of rub- 

 bish a foot deep was spread over the pens. For eight days the losses 

 continued the same, and then began gradually to diminish. In the 

 first fifteen days 312 oxen had perished in the enclosure covered with 

 the removed earth, and eight sheep belonging to the neighbouring pen. 

 No deaths occurred in the enclosure which was separated from the fatal 

 spot. In the spring the sheep were turned out to jiasture on land 

 manured by earth taken from the place where the sheep which had 

 died in the winter had been buried. In eight days thirteen of these 

 sheep died, although the soil had been well turned, exposed to the air 

 and frost, and mixed with lime and ashes ; and of ten more which were 

 confined here as an experiment three died in three days. The shep- 

 herd had a belief that certain fields were unhealthy and not fit for the 

 sheep to pass the night upon. A field in the corner of which a sheep had 

 been buried was sown with wheat, and the next year with clover, which 

 grew with great luxuriance in the spot mentioned. Some of the clover 

 was taken from the spot by a neighbouring woman, who fed her goat 

 and cow with it. The next morning the cow had a decided attack of 

 anthrax, and the goat had already died from the same disease. Hence 

 the germs — derived from the dead sheep — had been transmitted 

 through the clover after nearly two years. After this the plan, hitherto 

 adopted, of burying dead cattle in shallow graves on the pasturages 

 was abandoned for that of having a special place well divided off and 

 set apart for the purpose, with the result that whereas previously to 

 this step the loss of animals had been from 15 to 20 per cent, per 

 annum, the average was only 7 per cent, for the five years following, 

 and after two years had fallen to 5 and three years later to 3 per cent. 

 While comparing these facts with those obtained recently by con- 

 fining sheep over the grave of an animal which had died of the disease, 

 and by experimenting on animals with the earth and worm casts from 

 the same place, M. Pasteur mentions an experiment lately performed 

 by him, in co-operation with M. Chamberland, which is a modification 

 * Comptes Rendus, xci. (1880) pp. G97-701. 



