BACTERIAN ANTHRAX, 207 
potassium internally and the injections of iodine externally. After this 
length of time, if no improvement is manifest, there is but little hope 
of the efficacy of the iodine treatment. 
SECTION II. 
VIRULENT DISEASES. 
I. 
BACTERIAN ANTHRAX. 
Like septicemia, Jacterian or symptomatic anthrax isan infectious com- 
plication of wounds. Cattle and sheep are the only animals affected. 
It is of especially frequent occurrence among cattle, but animals less 
than six months or more than four years old rarely have it. 
The specific bacterium—dacterium Chauvai—invades the organism 
through wounds of the skin and mucous membranes, and has to be intro- 
duced deeply into the subcutaneous connective tissue. Intradermic in- 
oculations and superficial pricks remain almost always sterile. 
The disease develops ordinarily through the wounds that animals receive 
in infected pastures. Wounds of the lower regions of the extremities ex- 
pose them to it particularly. The buccal and pharyngeal membranes 
are also roads of entrance favorable for infectious elements: there are 
frequent accidental wounds in them from the fodder, and the growth of 
the adult teeth keeps up for a long time in the mouth lesions by which the 
bacilli may enter. 
After an incubative period of from one to five days—on the average forty- 
eight hours—the characteristic phenomena of the infection appear, namely, 
one or several subcutaneous, crepitating tumors and specific adenopathics 
in their neighborhood. These tumors are ordinarily located on the chest, 
axilla, shoulder, croup, thigh or groin. Although they are only more or 
less painful and of small size at first, they spread very rapidly and may ina 
few hours assume considerable dimensions; by palpation they give the 
sensation of crepitation; by percussion, a tympanitic sound; soon their 
center becomes insensible and the skin is cold and gangrenous. Puncture 
gives escape to a reddish fluid filled with gases. The prophylactic measures 
are to protect the animals from the infection by avoiding exposure or by 
rendering them unsusceptible through vaccination (Arloing, Cornevin 
and Thomas). 
The malignant nature of the disease and the rapidity of its progress 
generally render all interference useless. “ When recovery occurs, it 
seems to take place spontaneously ; and when it is in connection with the 
