INFECTIOUS DISEASES, 543 
globules crenated ‘and the leucocytes granular. A high power of the 
microscope also reveals the bacteria in the shape of little rodlike 
bodies of homogeneous texture with their brilliant spores. 
The lymphatic ganglia are increased four, five, six, or ten times 
their natural size, enlarged by the engorgement of blood. The spleen 
shows -nodulated black spots containing a muddy blood, which is 
found teeming with the virus. This organ is much enlarged and is 
quite friable. The mucous membranes of the intestines are congested 
and reddish brown; the surface of the intestines is in many places 
denuded of its lining membrane, showing fissures and hemorrhagic 
spots. The liver has a cooked appearance; the kidneys are congested 
and friable; the urine is red; the pleura, lungs, and the meninges are 
congested, and the bronchi of the lungs contain a bloody foam. 
Treatment.—Treatment of anthrax in animals by medicinal means 
has not proved satisfactory. In cases of local anthrax an incision 
of the swelling followed by the application of disinfectants some- 
times causes good results. In such cases, however, the danger of dis- 
seminating the infection from the wounds tends to make this pro- 
cedure inadvisable unless great care is taken. 
Good results are obtained from the use of serum in the treatment 
of the disease. For this purpose 30 to 100 cubic centimeters should 
be administered subcutaneously or intravenously. If no improve- 
ment is noticed within 24 hours the injection should be repeated. In 
a number of instances afforded to test the curative value of the serum 
in cases of anthrax in man and animals splendid results were ob- 
tained. 
The prophylactic treatment formerly consisted in the avoidance of 
certain fields and marshes which were recognized as contaminated 
during the months of August and September and had been occupied 
the years in which the outbreaks usually occurred. It underwent, 
however, a revolution after the discovery by Pasteur of the possibility 
of a prophylactic inoculation or vaccination which granted immunity 
from future attacks of the disease similar to that granted by the 
recovery of an animal from an ordinary attack of the disease. 
This treatment consists in the use of a vaccine which is made by the 
artificial cultivation of the virus of anthrax in broth and in the treat- 
ment of it by méans of continued exposure to a high temperature for 
a certain time, which weakens the virus to such extent that it is 
capable of producing only a very mild and not dangerous attack of 
anthrax in the animal in which it is inoculated, and thus protects it 
from inoculation of a stronger virus. The production of this virus, 
which is carried on in some countries at the expense of the govern- 
ments and is furnished at a small cost to the farmers in regions where 
the disease prevails, in this country. is made in private laboratories 
only. 
