Anthrax

“ DEFINITION.—Anthrax is an acute, infectious, bacteridian disease, occurring mostly in the Herbivora and Omnivora, but communicable to other mammals (including man) , to birds, and even fishes. Its local manifestations are exceedingly varied in kind, but the malady is characterized by the presence in the tissues or blood, or both, of specific spherical and linear bacteria (micrococcus and bacillus anthracis) , leading to arrest of hæmatosis, to disintegration of the blood-globules, to sanguineous engorgement of the spleen, to capillary embolism, and to a spreading gangrenous inflammation. ”

“ Let me spell them out, and these are medical terms, but it is important they be on the record - so the people know it, and so researchers can compare the illnesses we are now seeing with the effects of exposure to these particular items.
The first one is bacillus anthracis, or anthrax as it is called, which is a disease-producing bacteria identified by the Department of Defense in `The Conduct of the Persian Gulf War: Final Report to Congress,` as being a major component in the Iraqi biological warfare program.
Anthrax is an often-fatal infectious disease caused by ingestion of anthrax spores. ”

“ Thus, in drying up basins with no natural drainage, on lake and river margins, on deltas, in forests, in mucky, mossy, or peaty soils, and on those that are habitually over-manured, the germs of anthrax are especially liable to be perpetuated. It has long been noticed that herbivorous animals are the most susceptible to anthrax, while the purely carnivorous, and to a less extent the omnivorous, have relatively a far higher resisting power. ”

“ As anthrax prevails in damp, undrained lands where agriculture is backward, it is not wonderful that it can be traced to near the dawn of human history when the whole race lived under primitive conditions. ”

“ The anthrax bacillus cannot produce the hardy spore form within the bodies of animals, but it does outside. Now it has been shown that the bacilli of anthrax taken from the blood of an animal dead of anthrax are destroyed rapidly in ordinary River Thames water, for example, but that if the temperature of the water to which they gain access is somewhat higher than usual, such bacilli are able to sporulate or produce spores in the water, and in that hardy form can retain their vitality and virulence for several months. ”

“ The post-mortem appearances in internal anthrax are such as are usually observed in septicaemia, but in addition evidence of extensive inflammation of the lungs, pleura and bronchial glands has in most cases been met with. The blood and other fluids and the diseased tissues are found loaded with the Bacillus anthracis. ”

“ In all cases, some particular living and growing thing breaks through into the blood, or gets a foothold somewhere in the body, and begins to poison it. Then the invaders and the blood cells fight it out—and the best man wins.
There is a disease called anthrax which attacks various animals, ourselves and the birds among the number. A hen, for example, fighting anthrax, will almost always win, if it is kept warm. The lymph cells fight better when the blood is hot. But if the hen’s feet are kept in cold water, then the anthrax wins. The cool blood gives it the advantage. ”

“ The wool of sheep who die of the disease finds its way into commerce, and those employed in handling the wool have a form of anthrax known as wool-sorters' disease in which lesions are found in the lungs, the organisms being mingled with the wool dust and inspired. In Boston occasional cases of anthrax appear in teamsters who are employed in handling and carrying hides. The disease in man is not so fatal as in cattle, for it remains local for a time at the site of infection, and this local disease can be successfully treated. ”

“ The grave character of internal anthrax, however, is such that resort may be had to one of the various antitoxins, antidotal cultures, serums, and immunizing agents that have proved useful in different hands. Unfortunately such agents do not seem to act in the same manner on all genera, and what has been effective in one of the lower animals may fail in the human being. Thus Roger found that sterilized cultures of bacillus prodigiosus retarded or obviated anthrax in rabbits, but hastened its progress in the Guinea pig. ”

“ What is even worse, the ability of the blood to absorb oxygen is greatly impaired. In men and dogs suffering from anthrax the consumption of oxygen was found to be reduced in one instance even by two-thirds, probably in part by reason of the action of the chemical products of the bacillus. A third condition constantly found is embolism of the capillaries by the bacillus and the occurrence of local gangrene.
SYMPTOMS.—Anthrax shows itself in three principal forms: 1st, the apoplectiform; 2d, anthrax fever without local external lesions; and 3d, external localized anthrax. ”

“ Four Americans have died as a result of these acts of terrorism. At least 13 others have developed forms of anthrax disease, either in the lungs, or less severely, on the skin.
Public health officials have acted quickly to distribute antibiotics to people who may have been exposed to anthrax. When anthrax exposure is caught early, preventative treatment is effective. Anthrax can be treated with many antibiotics, and several pharmaceutical companies have offered medicine at reduced prices. ”

“ The animal that has survived an attack of anthrax is thereafter strongly immune. This serves to partly explain the apparent immunity of animals bred in an anthrax district, the young animal becoming habituated to infinitesimal doses of the toxins, conveyed in the secretions of the uterine glands or mammæ. ”

“ Dry Chinese and Russian hides are specially liable to contain the spores of anthrax, and, as the disease proves fatal to workmen infected by it unless treatment with anti-anthrax serum be given in the early stages, hides and 28 skins from infected areas should be disinfected before shipment. The method proposed by Mr. A. Seymour-Jones, which consists in treating hides with very dilute formic acid and one part of bichloride of mercury in 1,000 of water, and afterwards with a saturated solution of salt solution (.02 per cent.) ”

“ The Algerian sheep is virtually immune from anthrax, perhaps because its ancestors have been so constantly exposed that only the insusceptible strains survived. Swine, birds and carnivora may have similarly acquired a fair measure of immunity by the survival of the fittest. Apart from this, however, a flesh diet is to a certain extent protective, thus Feser’s rats if fed vegetable food proved susceptible to inoculated anthrax, while if fed on animal food they were comparatively immune. ”

“ Animals.—As affecting wild as well as domesticated animals and man, anthrax has been widely diffused in one or more of its forms, over the surface of the globe. It at times decimates the reindeer herds in Lapland and the Polar regions, and is only too well known in the tropics and in temperate latitudes. ”

“ In animals, anthrax is also called charbon, splenic fever, or splenic apoplexy: in man, the name of malignant pustule is given to the sore at the point of accidental inoculation, and the name of woolsorter's disease is given to those cases of anthrax where the lungs are infected by inhalation of the spores of the bacillus anthracis. ”

“ Historical Perspective on Biological Attack In 2001, anthrax attacks through the U.S. mail infected 11 people with inhalational anthrax, of which five died. An additional 11 people were infected with cutaneous (skin) anthrax, of which there were no fatalities. In the 1990s, the cult Aum Shinrikyo failed in its attempts to release anthrax and botulinum toxin in Tokyo but did succeed in a chemical attack with Sarin nerve agent. ”

“ Feeding on bacilli alone would probably not produce the disease, owing to the germicidal effect of the gastric juice. But spores can readily pass uninjured through the stomach and produce anthrax in the blood. Infected water as well as fodder may convey the disease. Water becomes infected by bodies of animals dead of anthrax, or, as was the case once at least in the south-west of England, by a stream passing through the washing-yard of an infected tannery. Manure on fields, litter in stalls, and infected earth may all contribute to the transmission of the disease. ”

“ The liver has a cooked appearance; the kidneys are congested and friable; the urine is red; the pleura, lungs, and the meninges are congested, and the bronchi of the lungs contain a bloody foam.
Treatment.—Treatment of anthrax in animals by medicinal means has not proved satisfactory. In cases of local anthrax an incision of the swelling followed by the application of disinfectants sometimes causes good results. In such cases, however, the danger of disseminating the infection from the wounds tends to make this procedure inadvisable unless great care is taken. ”

“ In outbreaks of anthrax on farms where many animals are exposed to infection immediate temporary protection can be conferred by the injection of anthrax serum.
Human Beings.—For many years cases of sudden death had been observed to occur from time to time among healthy men engaged in woollen manufactories, particularly in the work of sorting or combing wool. In some instances death appeared to be due to the direct inoculation of some poisonous material into the body, for a form of malignant pustule was observed upon the skin ”

“ The bacilli seem to die in the carcase of a dead animal within three days [154] after death; and as, for spore formation, the free access of air and a temperature of 70° F. are necessary, it is not likely that this goes on in the earth. Pasteur's assertion that anthrax spores may be brought to the surface by earthworms is discredited by Koch and others. Man, I believe, has never been infected with anthrax except by direct inoculation or, as in the wool-sorter, by inhaling spores from infected wool or hides. ”

“ Another mode in which the disease-germs of anthrax may be conveyed to herds of cattle widely separated from, each other and from any ostensible source of infection was discovered by the inquiries prosecuted, a few years ago, by Professor Burdon-Sanderson at the Brown Institution, in consequence of a number of simultaneous outbreaks which occurred in different parts of the country. ”

“ Anthrax, an′thraks, n. a widely distributed and very destructive disease, most common among sheep and cattle, the first infectious disease proved to be due to the presence of microscopic vegetable organisms (bacilli) —other names are Splenic Apoplexy, Splenic Fever, and as it occurs in man, Malignant Pustule and Woolsorter's Disease: a carbuncle or malignant boil.—adjs. Anthra′cic, An′thracoid. [L.—Gr. anthrax; coal, a carbuncle.]
Anthropical, an-throp′ik-al, adj. (rare) connected with human nature. [Gr. anthropikos, human, anthrōpos, man.] ”

“ Martin had an excitement not free from anxiety. He laughed at it, he remembered with professional scorn how foolish were the lay visitors to the laboratory, who believed that sanguinary microbes would leap upon them from the mysterious centrifuge, from the benches, from the air itself. But he was conscious that in the cotton-plugged test-tube between the instrument-bath and the bichloride jar on the demonstrator’s desk were millions of fatal anthrax germs. ”

“ One-thousandth of a drop of virulent anthrax blood invariably killed the guinea-pig, while it left the rabbit unharmed.2 Klein has never found a rabbit insusceptible. It has recently been claimed that pigs are insusceptible, but I have known of many instances in which the offal of anthrax cattle, when devoured by pigs, has determined fatal anthrax in the latter. Chickens too prove much less susceptible to anthrax than the Herbivora. ”

“ Owing to the fact, however, that they are not dyed but generally employed as they stand, they may not be scoured so thoroughly as ordinary wool. The deadly germs of anthrax are often present on these materials, this disease being frequently transmitted to a worker handling the fleeces where clots of blood produced by careless clipping are a grave source of danger. There is also further evidence of uncleanness in the specks of dandruff-like matter which are often found sticking on the fibres of the yarn. ”

“ In the lower animals anthrax manifests itself differently according to the seat of invasion and the amount of the virus. The worst forms, seen especially in cattle and sheep, are so sudden that they have been called apoplectic or fulminant. Without premonitory symptoms there is sudden loss of appetite, trembling, haggard expression of face, uneasy shifting of the feet, irregular movements backward or to one side, dyspnœa, cyanosis, plaintive cries, convulsions, ejection of blood by the nose or with urine or fæces, and death in a time varying from a few minutes to four hours. ”

“ Bloody patches in the tongue, throat, lungs, stomach, and intestines, caul, skin, and muscles, or in fact in almost any part of the body, will be plainly visible.
The Management of the Sick Animal and disposal of the carcass are the most important procedures in an outbreak of anthrax, from a sanitary standpoint. Medicinal treatment is of little value. A vaccine has been discovered that is very effective in preventing the disease. This has been used very successfully in both this and European countries. If a case of anthrax is suspected, call your veterinarian at once. ”