761 
r 
SOME EXPERIENCES IN THE SOUTH. 
fatalities from the disease have since occurred. Of course, the 
necessary sanitary precautions were adopted to check its'rav¬ 
ages. 
In the large cotton-growing sections in the northern portions 
o the State they have, generally in the spring, a condition in 
their mules which they consider anthrax, or charbon, as it is 
termed by our French population. It consists of an enlarge¬ 
ment, often extending from the inguinal region to the xiphoid 
cartilage of the sternum, and in some cases to the carniform 
cartilage, but with no apparent constitutional disturbance what¬ 
ever. Their treatment is extremely heroic, or, perhaps a better 
term would be, barbarous. Hot shovels, concentrated lye, the 
part saturated with turpentine and then set fire to, are ex¬ 
amples, and. if the poor animals survive this they usually re¬ 
cover, but with an eschar that they carry with them until death. 
The condition is really one of anasarca, the result of indi¬ 
gestion. As soon as the animals have finished the work of 
cultivation they are turned into the cotton fields—after the cot¬ 
ton has been picked—to gather their living in the rows, in 
which there is a considerable quantity of grass, and for two or 
three months in many cases they receive no grain food what¬ 
ever. When the-time arrives in the spring for the ground to be 
broken the mules are brought up and without the slightest 
preparation are given full, hard-working grain rations. 
During the prolonged interval between grain-feeding the 
system has become so inured to the light, easily digestible 
alimentation—which toward the last is somewhat scant—that it 
is generally more or less in a state of atony. The sudden 
change when in this condition to a more highly stimulating 
mtro-carbonaceous grain ration, requiring greater powers o*f 
digestion, produces indigestion, and from over-stimulation we 
have transudation of serum from the walls of the atonic blood¬ 
vessels, gravitating into the subcutaneous tissues on the lower 
portion of the abdomen. 
As I have said, many believe this to be charbon, simply on 
account of the swellings ; and if the animal—which really would 
