144 PRINCIPLES OF VETERINARY SURGERY 



It was once supposed that they Hved for a long time when 

 deeply buried with the carcasses of animals having died of 

 the disease and that they subsequently were brought to the 

 surface by moisture currents or earth worms. But this has 

 been proven erroneous. It is now known that, buried, they 

 die like any other living cell. It is the desiccated spore that 

 is so viable, and not the buried one. Pasteur has always 

 maintained that it was the living, diseased animal, that dis- 

 seminated the infectious matter, and not the dead; and sub- 

 sequent investigation bears out his statements. The living 

 animal, by its excrement, spreads the germs over the sur- 

 face where they are capable of living for long periods, and 

 whence they can be blown to remote places by wind-carried 

 dust. 



Toxin. — The metabolic product of the bacillus anthracis 

 is a curling ferment that will digest both casein and fibrin. 

 It is, properly speaking, not a toxin, and it is indeed doubt- 

 ful whether the bacillus elaborates any poison at all. Several 

 experimenters have isolated various toxic products, but they 

 were found to be fatal only in very large doses, which clearly 

 indicates that they are not the death dealing elements of the 

 germ. The anthrax poison is an intra-cellular poison, and 

 not an extra-cellular toxin. 



Immunity. — Vaccination. Pasteur has provided a prac- 

 tical means of immunization, which consists of inoculating 

 exposed animals with attenuated bacilli, now sold by the 

 Pasteur Vaccine Company under the name of "anthrax vac- 

 cine." The attenuation of the bacillus is accomplished by 

 various means, but the Pasteur Company alone seem to have 

 the secret of reducing its virulence to a uniformly safe de- 

 gree of attenuation. Attempts to produce a similar product 

 by other manufacturers of biological products have thus far 

 proved disastrous, in that vaccinated animals often devel- 

 oped fatal forms of the disease. The scientific world is in- 



