1893 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
6i5 
ANTHRAX IN DELAWARE. 
Bulletin No. 20 of the Delaware Ex¬ 
periment Station (Newark, Del.), gives 
an interesting and valuable account of 
this cattle disease which, it appears, has 
been found in Delaware. It is said that 
the following statement represents the 
essence of the laws now in force in well- 
governed European countries: 
Whenever farm stock dies, or is found 
dead, under suspicious circumstances, 
then a competent veterinarian should be 
called at once to make an investigation; 
or the carcass should be cremated, if 
possible, before it has been mutilated by 
dogs or buzzards; it should not be 
skinned or opened ; or a spot should be 
selected upon the farm suitable for a 
burial p.aee by reason of location and 
soil. To this all carcasses should be 
drawn, and should there be covered with 
not less than six feet of earth. Blood 
and excrement from the carcass should 
not be allowed to defile the trail to the 
grave. 
In 1892 a number of cases of anthrax 
occurred in Delaware; 10 farms were 
affected and 40 cows and nine horses are 
known to have died. 
What is Anthrax ? 
This definition is given in the Bulletin: 
Anthrax is a disease which affects all 
domestic animals. Carnivora or flesh- 
eaters, dogs for instance, enjoy, it is 
true, a high degree of protection against 
it, but at times they too succumb. Man 
himself is quite susceptible, and sheep, 
goats, horned cattle and horses are 
especially liable to contract it. The re¬ 
sult depends upon the portion of the 
body that is affected. If the poison 
passes through the stomach and devel¬ 
ops in the intestines, death follows. If, 
in the case of man, a wound on the 
hand or leg. gives the poison entrance 
into the body, then malignant pustules 
form ; oftentimes such patients recover, 
possibly one in five may die. The same 
can be said of horned stock, but sheep 
and goats, with one or two curious ex¬ 
ceptions, have little or no resisting 
powers, and ant rax once in a flock, 
oftentimes claims one-half as victims. 
Toe cause of this disease is a plant too 
small by far to be seen by the naked eye. 
Under the microscope, it looks like a 
rod possibly five times as long as it is 
thick. Five thousand of these rods put 
end to end might measure one inch in 
length. This rod-like plant goes to seed 
under certain circumstances, a point to 
A Deadly Disease. 
This anthrax plant can multiply in cul¬ 
tivated soil as well as in the animal body. 
A German farmer found the disease in 
his sheep as a consequence of folding 
them on fre^h soil from a place where 
former victims had been buried. This in¬ 
fected field was limed, manured and 
seeded to grass. Still the anthrax ap¬ 
peared there. Then we are tola : 
The ground was hard, efforts to escape 
work were common, carcasses were either 
hidden in gullies, washed out by rains, 
or carelessly covered with soil The 
field was plowed and planted in rye. Dur¬ 
ing this plowing, the carcass of a sheep 
was turned out. The proprietor saw it, 
caused it to be covered, and marked the 
spot. On that spot the rye for a space 
nearly four feet square was very rank 
and heavy. Following rye, clover was 
seeded; on that spot it, too, was very rank. 
One moaning that rank clover was cut 
and stolen. The following day a laborer’s 
wife came hurriedly to the farm with the 
report that her goat was dead and that 
her cow was dying. The farmer suspected 
that she was the clover thief, and drove 
at once to her home in the village. There 
he found the shepherd skinning the goat’s 
carcass, and soon had an opportunity to 
note all the characteristic post-mortem 
appearances of anthrax. The cow died 
during his stay, and proof was gained 
that its death was also due to anthrax. 
A portion of the stolen clover was lying 
on the barn floor, and the woman ad¬ 
mitted that she had given it at noon and 
at night the day before to both goat and 
cow. 
The sources of infection are tanneries 
where foreign goat skins are used, and 
wool waste. There is great danger in 
cutting up diseased animals for examina¬ 
tion. It is believed that anthrax was 
carried last summer on the boots or cloth¬ 
ing of a farmer who helped a neighbor 
dissect a carcass. It is also believed that 
buzzards may spread the disease. 
The proper thing to do is to burn the 
carcasses of victims and all straw and 
the soil near the body. A horse weighing 
1,400 pounds was completely burned in 
five hours by a fire of eight railroad ties 
and half a cord of hard wood. 
Feeding Wheat. —Here is a thought 
starter from Jobn Gould in Hoard’s 
Dairyman : 
Yesterday I saw at the local mills, 
wheat being sold at $18 50 per ton, and 
farmers loading up with shorts at $17 
per ton to feed, for the drought is de- 
The Improved Monarch Incubator. 
uuucx a point to manding something for extra feeding 
be remembered for it is this peculiarity Did the man who received $1 50 to bo£ 
which gives to it almost unlimited power between wheat and shorts, get any value 
*° r hnufheat^nd the *f seeds can received out of the matter; or was it not 
the miller who got the ttoir ? There la 
years in a dry place without loss of vital¬ 
ity. A combination of heat, moisture 
and food, such as the animal body offers, 
may cause the seed to germinate, and 
develop an epidemic anew. Once 
within the animal body, anthrax plants 
multiply without seed formation, and if 
they cause the death of the animal and 
it is buried without a dissection or muti¬ 
lation, which would allow air to come 
into contact with the blood, then, in a 
short time, the plant dies, and nothing 
remains to generate future trouble. Al¬ 
most invariably, however, immediately 
after death, blood exudes from all of the 
natural openings of the carcass of an 
anthrax victim. Such blood does not 
coagulate ; in may sink readily into the 
soil or may spread over it in broad pools, 
offering ampie opportunity for aeration, 
and for seed formation within a rela¬ 
tively few hours. 
There are two theories to explain how 
the disease ever reached Delaware. It 
was brought by drovers or tanners and 
morocco makers. In the first case dis¬ 
eased cows may have been driven into 
a widespread idea that the flour of the 
wheat is not intended by Providence to 
be used as food save by the human 
family, but with wheat at 55 cents, it 
begins to look as if the beasts of the field 
had “the call” on the humans in the 
matter of high-priced food. The matter 
hereabouts is being actively discussed, 
and if I am not greatly mistaken, there 
will be considerable quantities of wheat 
ground for milch cows, for it looks as if 
there were a screw loose in business 
calculations when wheat sells for $18, 
and mill feed for $17 a ton ; and what is 
left as flour sells for $4 50 a barrel. 
New Remedy for FI en Lice. —Insect 
Life contains a translation from the 
French Journal of Agriculture. A. D. 
Scheneder tells how he drove the lice 
from his hen house by tying a few small 
bottles of bi-sulphide of carbon to the 
perches with the stoppers out, leaving 
the liquid to evaporate. The hem roost 
over the bottles and the vapor kills the 
lice. This is what he says : 
The very next day after usiDg it I was 
agreeably surprised to find that the 
rru, V t Tu , enem y had left, leaving none but dead 
tbe btate. In the second case the disease and dying behind, and on the following 
was brought on raw imported goat skins. day Q ot a single living insect was to be 
It has been amply proved that tbe dis¬ 
ease has been conveyed by such skins. 
Farmers near Wilmington are reported 
to be impressed with the value of skin 
scraps and hair from the morocco fac¬ 
tories. It is known that within two or 
three years, it has been customary to 
haul such waste and to compost it on 
farms in the immediate neighborhood of 
those affected by the last epidemic. To 
make the argument complete, it is neces¬ 
sary to assume that at least one anthrax 
skin has come into Wilmington and that 
scraps of it have been taken to one of 
the i ighest lying farms in the infected 
region. For, given moisture and heat, 
the anthrax seed can develop in certain 
soil, can be carried in drainage waters 
and can cause the death of stock, either 
found, while my birds were sitting quiet¬ 
ly on the roosts, enj ying anunwontedly 
peaceful repose. This lasted for 12 days, 
till the sulphide had evaporated. Twen¬ 
ty-four hours later a fresh invasion of 
lice put in an appearance under the 
wings of the birds in the warmest por¬ 
tions of the house, where there were no 
currents of air. I replenished the sup¬ 
ply of sulphide, and the next morning 
only a few of these were remaining. 
The next morning every trace of vermin 
had disappeared. Since that time I have 
personally made a great number of fur¬ 
ther trials with the sulphide, with im¬ 
mediate and absolute success. I should 
recommend the sulphide of carbon to be 
mssssssi 
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ene antnrax seed can develop in certain put in small medicine vials hung about 
soil, can be carried in drainage waters the pigeon house or poultry roost. When 
and can cause the death of stock, either it has about three parts evaporated the 
when said stock is pasturing on land remainder will have acquired a yellowish 
over which the drainage flows, or when tinge, and no longer acts so completely 
it; IS OniHTP.ri t,n flririlr urro ton mL Lon on "LniJ-_ i_ a. * # • a i i •» » . 
T YNFELD IIOLSTEINS—Cows, Heif- 
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Circular. 
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it is obliged to drink water which has 
percolated through fields dressed with 
this skin compost. 
DRIED 
OBDEH8 TAKEN BY THE 
as before, but if it be shaken up afresh 
it will suffice to keep the enemy at a 
distance. 
BREWERS’ GRAINS.! 8t iciest Btictt, Bicolln.B. Y. 
