642 
W. H. DALRYMPLE. 
ble than any or all other agencies combined, in spreading the 
disease in the Lower Mississippi Valley. Of course, the first 
cases are responsible in providing the source from which these 
hordes of insects obtain the virulent material for inocula¬ 
tion. 
Let us devote a few seconds to the consideration of a case 
that is an early victim of the disease, and which has been left 
exposed on the surface of the ground, and see how we can 
charge responsibility of spread to such a source : At, and im¬ 
mediately after death, the blood is simply swarming with an¬ 
thrax bacilli. It is a common occurrence in Louisiana to wit¬ 
ness thousands of blood-sucking flies loading up on the virulent 
blood at this time, and it is almost immediately succeeding 
such occurrence that we begin to find numerous cases of anthrax 
of the external or carbuncular form, and at points widely sepa¬ 
rated, the tabanidse, as you are no doubt aware, "being exceed¬ 
ingly strong on the wing, and capable of flying immense dis¬ 
tances. 
On account of rapid decomposition of the body, and the 
evolution of gases after death, we have bloody discharges issu¬ 
ing, probably by pressure from within, from the natural open¬ 
ings. This virulent material exposed to the air permits of the 
bacilli contained within it undergoing the process of sporula- 
tion, contaminates the surroundings with which it comes in 
contact, besides becoming a source from which other varieties 
of fly-scavengers, which do not puncture the skin, can obtain 
the virus on their mouth-parts and feet, and are then capable of 
transmitting the infection to susceptible animals having abra¬ 
sions of the skin. Grass, herbage, and other food materials 
grown upon the soil contaminated by the charbonous discharges 
from the dead animal may, and often do, as has been proved in 
many instances, become infected by the adherence of spores to 
these materials, and cause outbreaks, not only in the vicinity 
of the victim, but wherever such food-stuffs may be transported. 
Virulent discharges from the carcasses that have been washed 
by rains into running water or streams may not only contami- 
