Suppression and Prevention of Anthrax in Herds. 259 



4th. There is no necessity for the care and cost of holding 

 the inoculated animals apart by themselves, under official veter- 

 inary control for 15 days, of witholding their products from 

 market, or of disinfecting the place where they have been kept. 

 On the contrary, the animals inoculated can be treated in every 

 ■way as if no such injection had been made. 



Thorough Drainage and Aeration of Land. The most complete 

 and permanent method of eradicating anthrax is by thorough 

 aeration of the soil. In dry, sandy or gravelly soils, having a 

 good natural or artificial drainage, and not underlaid by an 

 impermeable damp stratum, the bacillus is never permanently 

 found, and if introduced, is slowly robbed of its virulence by 

 the action of the oxygen. When a soil can be well and per- 

 manently aerated by thorough underdrainage, a few years suffice 

 -to rob it of its infecting property and render it salubrious. In 

 many localities, however, this is actually and economically im- 

 possible, so that the owner is thrown back on the alternatives, 

 of abandoning the soil for stock keeping, or of immunizing all 

 the animals placed on it. 



Prevention of Importation of Anthrax. To prevent the intro- 

 duction of anthrax into a country or district, the usual control 

 must be exerted on trade in cattle and their products, as in the 

 case of other infectious diseases. Live stock coming from an an- 

 thrax-infested country or district must be excluded, or admitted 

 ■only after quarantine of 6 to 10 days and the disinfection of the 

 surface of the animal. Dried hides, horns, hoofs, hair, wool and 

 bristles are even more dangerous, as they are liable to hold the 

 microbe in the spore form which will survive indefinitely and 

 plant the disease widely. The recent great extension of the dis- 

 ease along the Delaware River, in connection with the morocco 

 factories, which draw their hides from the most virulently an- 

 thrax regions (India, China, Russia, Africa, South America) is 

 a strong case in point, and nearly every tannery planted on a 

 favorable soil is an example on a smaller scale. Disinfection of 

 all such products on arrival is essential. But this should be 

 thorough and no question of trouble nor expense should stand in 

 the way. If the trade cannot stand the expense, it has no right 

 to exist where it is, threatening as it does, ruin, local and ulti- 

 mately general, of agriculture on which all other industries are 



