CHAPTER XIV. 



ANTHRAX. 



OTHER N AMES. — SPLENIC FEVEE, MALIGNANT PUSTULE, WOOL- 

 SORTER'S DISEASE ; GERMAS, MILZBRAND ; FRENCH, CHARBON.i 



Introductory. — Anthrax is a disease occurring epidemically 

 among the herbivora, especially sheep and oxen, in which 

 animals it has the characters of a* rapidly fatal form of 

 septicaemia with splenic enlargement, attended by an extensive 

 multiplication of characteristic bacilli throughout the blood. 

 The disease does not occur as a natural infection from man to 

 man, but may be communicated to him directly or indirectly 

 from animals, and it may then appear in one of three forms. 

 In all of these forms in the human subject, the bacilli are in 

 their distribution much more restricted to the local lesions than 

 is the case in the ox, their growth and spread being attended 

 by inflammatory oedema and often by hasmorrhages. 



Historical Summary. — Historical researches leave little doubt that 

 from the earliest times anthrax has occurred among cattle. For a long 

 time its pathology was not understood, and it went by many names. 

 Pollender in 1849 pointed out that the blood of anthrax animals con- 

 tained numerous rod-shaped bodies which he conjectured had some 

 causal connection with the disease. In 1863 Davaine announced that 

 they were bacteria, and originated the name bacillus anthracis. He stated 

 that unless blood used in inoculation experiments on animals contained 

 them death did not ensue. Though this conclusion was disputed, still 

 by the work of Davaine and others the causal relationship of the bacilli 

 to the disease had been nearly established when the work of Koch 

 appeared in 1876. This not only did much to clear up the whole subject, 

 but formed the starting-point of the science of bacteriology. Koch con- 

 firmed Davaine's view that the bodies were bacteria. He observed in the 

 blood of anthrax animals the appearance of division, and from this 

 deduced that multiplication took place in the tissues. He observed them 

 under the microscope dividing outside the body, and noticed spore- 

 formation taking place. He also isolated the bacilli in pure culture 



1 This must be distinguished from "charbon symptomatique," which is 

 quite a different disease. 



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