SYNOPSIS OF CONTINENTAL VETERINARY JOURNALS. 327 
lungs, congestion of the intestinal mucous and blood extrava¬ 
sations, especially in the serous membranes. And credible 
observers have, by microscopic examination, proved obstruc¬ 
tion to the circulation due to blocking of the capillaries by 
numberless Bacteria. 55 
M. Colin does not consider these facts conclusive, for the 
rapid engorgements of organs, haemorrhages, &c., are not 
always well marked in animals which have died from charbon, 
and sometimes such lesions are wanting, arid because in 
examination of the omentum and mesentery many difficulties 
in observation give rise to numerous liabilities of error. In 
opposition to this view he cites the above experiment, which 
is easy to repeat, and also such observation as the following : 
—The blood does not become equally loaded with Bacteria in 
all animals, the blood of adult animals whose charbon lesions 
are almost completely localised in the lymphatic glands 
contains very few Bacteria. In septicaemia death occurs 
as in charbon, u although the fine granules, micrococci or 
Bacteria germs, and the few septic vibriones present, cannot 
appreciably impede the circulation.” Also M. Colin believes 
that he has seen direct proof that the capillary circulation 
persists in charbonaceous animals for a long time after the 
period of great multiplication of Bacteria in the following 
experiments :—He opened the jugular and the carotid of 
rabbits affected with charbon just when death is about to 
supervene, and also of other rabbits in good health. The 
quantity of blood which escaped was in each case very nearly 
the same, but later in the dying animals it undergoes dimi¬ 
nution by a fifth or fourth, which may reasonably be put 
down to weakening of the heart’s action. So the death does 
not in cases of charbon result from mechanical impediment 
to the circulation. Does it then result from asphyxia ? The 
post-mortem appearances of the blood are somewhat those 
found in asphyxia, but during life the blood is of its ordinary 
red colour until the Bacteria occur in it in considerable 
numbers, then its redness slightly lessens, and it is only just 
before death that it becomes very black. This is, indeed, a 
commencement of asphyxia, but we cannot yet feel certain 
how it can produce death. M. Colin does not think it can be 
attributed to Bacteria, for the same condition is in this 
disease observable in the lymphatic ganglia though they 
contain few Bacteria ; also it is observable in septicaemia, the 
characteristic vibrio of which is destroyed by oxygen, and 
because it shows itself slowly. On the other hand, the 
colouration may well be attributed to the red corpuscles, 
which have lost their power of fixing oxygen, as seerns 
