from an Agricultural and Veterinarij Point of View. 11 
with regard to outbreaks of the disease, and its nature, cha- 
racteristics, and the damage it inflicts, are innumerable. Coun- 
tries with extensive marshes, low-lying valleys, or a tenacious 
subsoil, are those most affected. Thus it happens that there are 
regions notorious for the prevalence of anthrax — as the marshes 
of Sologne, Dombes and Bresse, Brie and Beauce, in France ; 
and certain parts of Germany, Hungary, and Poland. It is 
enzootic in the half-submerged valleys and the maritime coasts 
of Catalonia, and also in the Romagna and other marshy dis- 
tricts of Italy ; while it is epizootic, and extends itself to people, 
in the swampy regions of Esthonia, Livonia, Courland, and, 
above all, in Siberia, where sometimes, in order to suppress the 
ravages of the terrible " Jaswa," as it is termed, the aid of the 
military authorities is called for, and battalions of soldiers 
are sent to bury or burn the thousands of infected carcasses of 
animals which have died from it. And elevated countries are 
not exempted from it, for in the Bavarian Alps, for instance, it 
exacts an annual tribute of victims. 
The antiquity of anthrax is as great as its geographical 
extension is wide. It was one of the plagues with which the 
Egyptians were punished in the time of Moses, when there was 
a breaking forth of Mains upon man, and upon beast, through- 
out all the land of Egypt : upon the horses, upon the asses, upon 
the camels, upon the oxen, and upon the sheep. Virgil, in his 
' Georgics,' has depicted its deadliness and its contagiousness 
with the greatest accuracy, pointing out the dangers of the 
tainted fleeces of diseased sheep to mankind, as if he were 
describing the cause of what is now known as the " wool- 
sorters' disease " — anthrax conveyed to man by infected wool, 
and far from uncommon among people employed in woollen 
factories in this country. It frequently occurs in the histories 
of the Early and Middle Ages, as a devastating pestilence 
among animals, and through them as a plague of mankind. 
Our oldest Anglo-Saxon manuscripts contain many fantastic 
recipes, charms, and incantations, for the prevention or cure of 
the " blacon blegene " (black blain), and the relief of the " elf- 
shot " creatures. From these up to our own times, anthrax has 
attracted more and more attention ; even in this century, it has 
spread in some of its outbreaks over the whole of Europe, from 
Siberia to France. 
The losses inflicted by anthrax are appalling. Some idea of 
their extent may be derived from the fact, that in one district of 
France alone, Beauce, it kills about 178,000 sheep, which (at 
only thirty francs a hc^ad) are worth 5,340,000 francs, or 
213,600/. In 1842, when sheep were much less valuable than 
now, the loss in the same district was estimated at 7,080,000 
