A PLEA FOR VETERINARY SURGERY. 
163 
PARASITIC DISEASES IN WHICH MEN AND ANIMALS RECIPROCATE. 
Diseases due to parasites, harbored by man and animals, are 
far more numerous than those dependent on specific disease poi¬ 
sons. We cannot here enumerate the whole, but must hastily 
refer to a few only of the more redoubtable. 
Malignant Pustule , Malignant Antiwax , Anthrax Mycosis , 
Anthrax Baccihis. —This is one of the most anciently known of 
diseases, being almost certainly that which cut off the Egyptians 
and their cattle in the days of Moses, and that which swept down 
the Greeks and their live stock at the siege of Troy. Through 
the middle ages its ravages were frequent and extensive, the 
destruction falling with equal impartiality on man and beast. In the 
agriculturally undeveloped steppes of eastern Europe and Asia, 
such wholesale destruction occurs as a matter of to-day, and in our 
own Southern States severe losses are often sustained. Even in 
the North it is far from uncommon. I have known as many as 
fifty perish from a single herd in two weeks. Doctor Bell re¬ 
cords the occurrence of the disease in an equal number of human 
beings, within a few years, and many of them in Brooklyn City 
Hospital. I am further acquainted with a number of isolated 
attacks in man, caused by inoculation from the diseased animal. 
Hei •e, again, in several cases, the attending physicians failed to 
recognize the disease, on account of their want of acquaintance 
with the pathology of animals. We now know, from investiga¬ 
tions conducted on animals, that this affection depends on the 
presence in the system of a vegetable parasite, a special develop¬ 
ment of a fungus, (Bacillus Anthraeis,) which maintains its infect¬ 
ing properties only at a particular stage of development, but may 
be preserved for an indefinite length of time in buildings, yards, 
fodders, soil, and grasses, as well as in the dead bodies and other 
products of the diseased animals. 
Milk Sickness. —According to Dr. Bliillips, this disease is also 
due to vegetable fungus, which conveyed to man, in the products 
of the living or dead animals, produces a profound nervous pros¬ 
tration, with impairment or suspension of nearly all of the vital 
functions, and in many cases death. As the disease is produced 
in man mainly by the consumption of butter and cheese, and as 
