RESUMED STUDY IN ANTHRAX. 
387 
RESUMED STUDY IN ANTHRAX. 
CONSIDERED FROM THE POINT OF VIEW OF SANITARY POLICE. 
By Prof. Dessart. 
(Continued from page 279.) 
IV.— Etiology. 
Anthrax is a disease generally enzootic, produced by a local 
factor, to-day perfectly known. This (bacteridie of Davaine) 
lives in a cryptogamic state upon certain plants of fodder which 
grow in the localities where the disease exists, or is found on the 
ground in the state of germ. In this last case, the germs, as well 
as the mucedinue accidentally on the ground, are, on account of 
their very small size, transported to a certain distance by currents 
of air upon plants. .Rain-water, especially in poor, permeable 
under-soil, may also carry off these mycrophites with the mud 
that they cart along, and then go and contaminate neighboring 
pastures. These germs arise from two prolific forces, the nor¬ 
mal sporulation of the mucedinse, and the endogenesis which is 
accomplished amongst the bacteridian segments in the animal 
economy after the multiplication of the batonnets by fissiparity. 
The cadavers of carbuncular animals, in breaking up, set free 
the numerous microbs to which they have given temporary shelter. 
These microscopic organisms are then only in the state of 
germ-corpuscles. That is, that the medium in a state of putrefac¬ 
tion, in which they are situated, does not allow them to grow, on 
account of the penury of oxygen, while the miscrobs in the state 
of batonnets are destroyed by the influence of this same medium, 
or rather, asphyxiated by the excess of carbonic acid which it 
contains. But these germ-corpuscles possess a great vital re¬ 
sistance. They are afterwards left on the place where the cada¬ 
ver has undergone disaggregation, or are buried with it, or carried 
off by rain-waters over surrounding grounds, or at last removed 
by the winds to other parts more or less distant. Where they 
are inhumed with the cadaver, a great quantity of them, after a 
