-94 Rejioi't on an Inquiry into the Nature, Causes, and 
Apart from the glomeruli, the relations of the vascular supply 
of the pyramids may explain a more direct mode of entry of 
Bacilli by rupture of the capillaries, or, of course, they may 
escape into the bladder ; but the importance of the other method 
is, I think, especially in the possibility of the acquisition of a 
more stable form and of spore formation. 
Anthrax has been communicated by Feser and others by 
means of inoculation with the urine of animals suffering from the 
disease. When we consider the very numerous ways in which 
the poison thus excreted may, having acquired a stable form, 
become dried on fodder or hay, or spread on the ground in 
manure, and subsequently be introduced by various channels 
into the system, especially of animals which, like cows and 
sheep, are apt to have their food more or less mingled with 
excreta, we need seek for no more ready mode of preservation 
and conveyance of the contagion. This fact, if it leads to more 
rigorous sanitary precautions (such as the thorough destruction 
of all litter, &c.) suggested by these observations, may prove 
of great value in limiting and controlling the disease. 
The widespread distribution of the Bacilli in the capillaries 
of all the organs which are concerned in the most important 
functions of animal life, is suggestive of other modes by which 
they may cause death than by their direct action on the blood. 
Unquestionably, they must interfere with oxygenation, by 
taking from the red corpuscles their needful amount of oxygen 
and appropriating it to their own growth ; but their mere 
mechanical effect must also be considered, impeding, as it 
must, the action of the heart, the circulation and air absorption 
in the lungs, the excretory functions of the intestines and 
kidneys, and so on of nearly all the organs. And in corrobora- 
tion of this view are the often observed facts of preservation 
of intelligence and some power of action till very shortly before 
death, of the lowered temperature which often precedes death, 
and of the absence of the ordinary symptoms of septic poison- 
ing, properly so-called : the defective coagulation depending on 
the mechanical presence of Bacilli. So far as I have seen, there 
may be but slight changes in the blood taken from a large 
vessel, whilst the capillaries of the organ are crowded with 
bacilli, and the phenomena associated with early decomposition 
are much less frequent than in many forms of blood-poisoning. 
QuAKTER-EviL, Black Quaetee, oe Black Leg. 
The disease commonly known by these names is usually 
regarded as one of the forms of anthrax. It is widely spread 
throughout this country ; and different names are used to de- 
