the _Sibirskaja jaswa_ (Siberian boil-plague). The records of
anthrax go back to a very ancient date. It is supposed to be the murrain
of Exodus. Classical writers allude to anthrax as if it were the only
cattle disease worthy of mention (see Virgil, _Georg._ iii.). It figures
largely in the history of the early and middle ages as a devastating
pestilence attacking animals, and through them mankind; the oldest
Anglo-Saxon manuscripts contain many fantastic recipes, leechdoms,
charms and incantations for the prevention or cure of the "blacan
blezene" (black blain) and the relief of the "elfshot" creatures. In the
18th and 19th centuries it sometimes spread like an epizootic over the
whole of Europe, from Siberia to France. It was in this malady that
disease-producing germs (_bacteria_) were first discovered, in 1840, by
Pollender of Wipperfurth, and, independently, by veterinary surgeon
Brauell of Dorpat, and their real character afterwards verified by C.J.
Davaine (1812-1882) of Alfort in 1863; and it was in their experiments
with this disease that Toussaint, Pasteur and J.B. Chauveau first showed
how to make the morbific poison its own antidote. (See VIVISECTION.)

The symptoms vary with the species of animal, the mode of infection, and
the seat of the primary lesion, internal or external. In all its forms
anthrax is an inoculable disease, transmission being surely and promptly
effected by this means, and it may be conveyed to nearly all animals by
inoculation of a wound of the skin or through the digestive organs.
Cattle, sheep and horses nearly always owe their infection to spores or
bacilli ingested with their food or water, and pigs usually contract the
disease by eating the flesh of animals dead of anthrax.

Internal anthrax, of cattle and sheep, exhibits no premonitory symptoms
that can be relied on. Generally the first indication of an outbreak is
the sudden death of one or more of the herd or flock. Animals which do
not die at once may be noticed to stagger and tremble; the breathing
becomes hurried and the pulse very rapid, while the heart beats
violently; the internal temperature of the body is high, 104 deg. to 106
deg. F.; blood oozes from the nose, mouth and anus, the visible mucous
membranes are dusky or almost black. The animal becomes weak and
listless, the temperature falls and death supervenes in a few hours,
being immediately preceded by delirium, convulsions or coma. While death
is usually rapid or