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tain in its effects, and is less constant than by inoculation. Therefore, 
anthrax is not susceptible, like truly infectious diseases, to extend itself 
to long distances from its points of origin, increasing in strength as it 
travels on. On the contrary. 
But if its infectious properties are weak and diminish as it goes on, 
they exist nevertheless, and must be taken in consideration to the point 
of view of practice, and of the interpretation of facts. 
Anthrax leaves in the cadavers, in all species, uniform and constant 
marks which though not exclusive to it, are not without significance in 
the localities where the disease exists, and which are sufficient to char¬ 
acterize it objectively, and to allow to affirm its existence. 
These marks, left upon the cadavers, are in first line the black color 
and diffluent conditions of the blood, which has the appearance of melt¬ 
ed pitch. All the tissues show by their darkened shades, and by the dark 
spots which are found even in the deepest, this double character of the 
blood, its color and diffluency. They have besides become very putres- 
cible. But if all the tissues carry with them this carbuncular impi'ession, 
there are some that can be considered as selected spots of the anthracid 
lesions—these are the spleen and the lympathic glands. 
The frequency of carbuncular congestion upon the spleen is such 
that Tessier took this microscopical character as foundation to give the 
disease in sheep the name of splenic apoplexy* under which it is known 
to-day. But this character is not exclusive to the anthrax of sheep ; it 
is found also in other species, and often enough to be authorized to con¬ 
sider it as one of the attributes of anthrax. In all species, indeed, the 
spleen of animals which have died of anthrax is considerably increased 
in size, irregularly embossed on its surface, and its softened substance 
transformed into a kind of mud of a dark color, resembling India ink. 
It is only by exception that this character is missing. t 
For the lymphatic glands, and specially those of the abdomen, they 
are tumefied, by a bloody congestion of their tissue, and an infiltration 
of their network by a considerable quantity of citrine serosity. The 
cellular tissue surrounding them is the seat of the same infiltration. 
Such is the general character of anthrax, observed and studied with 
the means of the simple observation. From this, it results, that clinical 
facts, far from being contradictory to those given by perfected observa¬ 
tion, are, on the contrary, in perfect accord with them. The discovery 
of the parasitic nature of anthrax confirms, indeed, what the old obser¬ 
vation had learned upon the unity of this disease in all the species, and 
gives its explanation in exposing the active being from which anthrax 
* Sang de rate. 
