248 Veterinary Medicine. 



canaries, yellowhammers, redbreasts. The larger birds are more 

 resistant but succumb readily if dosed with chloral hydrate or 

 antipyrin (Wagner). Birds of prey seem to be immune. 



In chickens the disease is very acute, of rapid progress and 

 fatal. A few hours after inoculation they are seized with dul- 

 ness, debility, sunken head, drooping wings and tail, ruffled 

 feathers, and dark red or black discoloration of comb and wat- 

 tles. Dark colored anthrax swellings may appear on these last, 

 on the eyes, tongue, palate or feet, and the obstruction of breath- 

 ing may cause general cynosis. Weakness is extreme, the bird 

 staggers, or is unable to rise, has violent tremors or convulsions, 

 with bloody diarrhoea, and perishes after a few hours, or a day's 

 illness. The presence of anthrax in the locality, or in other spe- 

 cies, will be to some extent a safeguard against confounding 

 chicken cholera, entero-hepatitis, Birdpest, or malignant oedema 

 with this affection. The crucial diagnosis is based, as in other 

 animals, on the discovery of the characteristic bacillus. 



Differential Diagnosis. The suddenness of the attack, hyper- 

 thermia, dusky, cyanotic, petechiated mucosae, the escape of 

 blood from mucous surfaces, the dark, tarry blood, brightening 

 imperfectly on exposure to the air, its comparatively loose coag- 

 ulum, the crenation and destruction of red globules, the staining 

 of the serum with hgematoidin, the leucocytosis, the engorged, 

 enlarged liver and spleen, and the gelatinoid or bloody swell- 

 ings, not gasogenic as in black quarter or malignant oedema, to- 

 gether present a picture which is strongly suggestive of anthrax. 

 If the malady affects domestic animals generally, is especially 

 virulent in cattle, sheep and horses, and attacks even man ; if 

 the district is subject to anthrax, or of a rich, damp soil which 

 would favor the preservation of the bacillus anthrax ; if it is in 

 the line of watershed from stock-markets, abattoirs, tanneries, 

 rendering works, glue factories, packing houses, sausage fac- 

 tories, or phosphate works ; if forage or new stock has been in- 

 troduced from an anthrax district ; and if the outbreak has taken 

 place with a high soil-water level, or during a dry, hot season, 

 the case for anthrax will be strengthened. 



The final tests are known by the microscope and inoculation. 

 To discover the bacillus a power of 400 to 500 diameters is desir- 

 able. From the living animal take a drop of blood, exudate or 



