REPORT ON THE DISEASE KNOWN AS ANTHRAX. 
57 
“ There can be no doubt whatever as to the contagiousness of 
anthrax by actual contact or by the medium of contaminated sub¬ 
stances. Thousands of observations, melancholy histories, and 
numerous experiments testify to the fact. The malady has been 
produced in man and animals through coming in contact either 
directly or indirectly with the bodies, excretious, debris of dis¬ 
eased creatures, eating their flesh or blood, or the food, herbage, or 
water contaminated by them by accidental or experimental inocu¬ 
lation, etc. Dogs which have been eating diseased flesh and have 
soon afterwards bitten other animals, have produced the disease on 
them by their teeth. Veterinary surgeons and others have been in¬ 
fected through manipulating sick animals while alive or their car¬ 
casses after they have succumbed, or by wounding their hands 
while doing so, and it is not at all infrequent for people to receive 
the disease from applying the skin, hair or wool of affected crea¬ 
tures to their bodies.” 
Bacteria and Bacillus Anthracis. —The discovery by Pro¬ 
fessor Branell, of Dorpat Veterinary Institute, and subsequently 
by the eminent French veterinarian Delaford, of the presence in 
the blood of animals affected with blood poisoning ( septicaemia ) 
both before and after death, of myriads of staff-shaped bodies 
which have been called Bacteria , Bacteridoe or Bacilli , led to 
the examination of the blood of animals dying from anthrax, with 
the result, according to Davaine, of finding bacteria in every case, 
and that their appearance preceded the morbid symptoms, and 
that a single drop of blood was estimated by him to contain from 
eight to ten millions of these organisms. 
Interesting experiments have been conducted by Branell, De- 
lafond, Pasteur, Pollender, Bollinger, Davaine, Chauveau, Pa- 
pillon, Omnius and others, to which I refer those who wish to 
study this subject thoroughly. In this paper it will be necessary 
to confine our remarks and quotations to the most recent facts 
which have been elicited as deduced from or suggested by the 
labors of these experimenters. 
*The morphological peculiarities of anthrax bacteria may be 
* Bollinger (Ziemssen, p. B96.) 
