REPORT ON THE DISEASE KNOWN AS ANTHRAX. 
99 
great greed and in large quantities, thus taking it away from the 
red blood-globules. All the symptoms of the sick animals while 
alive—dyspnoea, cyanosis, clonic spasms, dilated pupils, finally 
depressed temperature, and the appearance of asphyxia—all of 
these symptoms, as in every case of carbonic acid poisoning, are 
explicable by the above detailed mechanism, which quickly results 
in a lack of oxygen and an excess of carbonic acid in the blood. 
Likewise the post-mortem examination reveals changes similar to 
those which we are accustomed to find after death due to lack of 
oxygen and overloading of the blood with carbonic acid, engorge¬ 
ment of the venous system, dark tarry character of the blood, 
slight hemorrhages in different organs, cyanotic coloring of the 
parenchymatous organs, hypersemia of the lungs. 
The overloading of the blood with carbonic acid is, moreover, 
greatly increased on account of the more rapid oxygenation that 
is going on, yielding a further qnantity of carbonic acid as a 
product of combustion. In this manner I explain those light¬ 
ning-like and apoplectiform cases where the animals suddenly 
sink to the earth and suddenly expire.” 
A year ago Professor Toussaint, of the Toulouse Veterinary 
College, discovered that in many cases death by bacteria was 
caused by obstruction of the circulation by masses of these rod¬ 
like bodies. On examining the mesentery, a thin transparent 
membrane, immediately after death, extremely important lesions 
were observed. “ A large number of capillaries were filled with 
bacteridice ; in many of them the vessel was so obstructed by 
these particles that blood corpuscles could not be seen ; often 
even the vessels were not discoverable save by the presence of 
the bacteridice , which marked their course as if they had been 
injected. The arterioles themselves were obstructed by means of 
bacteridice behind which the blood corpuscles were accumulated. 
An examination of other parts of the body led to the dis¬ 
covery of lesions of the same nature; intestinal villi were found 
to be injected at their summit with a mixture of blood and bac¬ 
teridice. These obstructions were most observable on the lungs. 
He says, in isolating a layer of vessels in the lungs, he found 
that these rod shaped bodies literally injected and crammed these 
