VETERINARY HYGIENE AND SANITATION. 
823 
done ; what is being done, and what should be done. Let us 
now consider briefly the most practical and rational sanitary 
measures to be adopted in an outbreak of this fatal disease, 
charbon, and I specially mention this malady on account of 
its prevalence in the State, and the loss which is sustained 
through its ravages. 
In the first place, charbon, or anthrax, is produced by its 
own specific germ, and without the presence of that particular 
germ there can be no charbon. There can be, and in fact are, 
several ways' by which the disease can be introduced into the 
living body, but the germ must be there. 
Before proceeding further, let us investigate this little life- 
destroying organism. His technical name is “ bacillus anthracis,” 
which simply means the bacillus of anthrax. He belongs to 
that variety of bacteria known as bacilli or rods, that is, his 
length exceeds his breadth. He is classed as an aerobe, for the 
reason that oxygen is absolutely essential to his existence or 
being. This last is a very important fact from a sanitary stand¬ 
point. When a victim of charbon ceases to breathe, the food 
supply of the bacillus is cut off, and as a consequence he will 
gradually degenerate and die, provided no atmospheric air, which 
of course contains oxygen, gets to him. And it has been found 
impossible to identify one of these germs in the blood of a char- 
bonous carcass 24 to 36 hours after death. This important fact, 
right* here, points to another very important fact ; and it is this : 
If that carcass is burnt, without any blood or other body dis¬ 
charges being allowed to escape—for it is valuable to know that 
all discharges issuing from a charbonous cadaver are infected— 
the last vestige of the contagion from that individual carcass 
will have been destroyed. But on the otherfiiand, if any of these 
discharges are permitted to come in contact with the oxygen of 
the air, being teeming with this organismal life, the latter are 
revivified from spores—which are the seeds of the future bacil¬ 
lus—contaminate the surrounding vegetation, which is in turn 
eaten by stock, or they are washed by surface water and find 
their way into streams, canals, bayous, etc., and may be carried 
