1388 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, 
