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The Prevalence of Anthrax in Great Britain. 
II. — On the Disposal of Carcasses of Animals dead 
of Anthrax. 
It is admitted that the risk of infection of man and animals 
with anthrax exists whenever the blood of an animal recently 
dead of the disease comes in contact with them. On this 
account it is essential that the greatest possible care should be 
taken when it is necessary to make post-mortem examinations 
and in the subsequent disposal of the carcass. 
Burial is the ordinary method of getting rid of a carcass, 
and it has the merit of being the most convenient one, but the 
expediency of this plan has recently been much criticised. It 
is contended that a buried carcass is likely to infect the soil 
with which it is covered, and that earthworms may bring the 
anthrax organism to the surface, and that in various ways the 
infective matter may be distributed even years after the carcass 
has been buried. 
To what extent the above statements deserve consideration 
is an open question, but it is quite certain that the objections 
do not apply to a carcass buried without being cut so as to let 
the atmosphere come in contact with the blood in the tissues, 
and thus apply to the organism the oxygen on which the main- 
tenance of its activity depends. 
The fact that the anthrax bacillus disappears from the blood 
when the carcass has undergone decomposition has long been 
admitted, but the experiments of Professor McFadyean prove 
that the destruction of the bacillus occurs a very short time after 
death. 
In the experiments numbered I. and II. the blood of the 
spleen when taken from an anthrax carcass eighteen hours after 
death proved harmless to rabbits, and in subsequent experiments 
negative results followed inoculat ion with the spleens of animals 
which had been dead for different periods varying from thirteen 
days to a month. The explanation of this loss of virulence is 
given in the article. The two essential conditions for the main- 
tenance of the activity of the virus are oxygen and a temper- 
ature not below 70° Fahr. : both these conditions cease to exist 
when the animal no longer breathes, and the carcass is covered 
with earth, while the destruction of the organism is further 
aided by the action of the septic bacteria which already exist in 
the digestive canal, and are developed in large numbers when 
decomposition commences. 
Complaints have been made by professional men that in the 
present state of the law it is impossible to study the morbid 
appearances of anthrax if dissection of a carcass is prohibited. 
