Medical Officers of Me Army' of India.
3
of blood along a portion of the edge of a thick mass of clot among the blood
corpuscles which had been pressed out of it in the course of preparation. They
consisted of filaments of various lengths, some merely .curved or sinuous, others;
and specially the longer ones, showing one or two distinct spirals. Both extre-
mities appeared to be pointed, but one was apparently thicker and somewhat
blunter than the other. In some cases a slender flagellar process could be
recognised continued for some distance from the more pointed extremity. The
length of the larger specimens omitting the curves was about 2.5 μ , the breadth
varying in different parts of the thicker portions of the body from μ 1.5 μ , to
0.78μ The filaments were sometimes only very slightly, curved, but were
in no instances straight. They were always quite smooth in outline and showed
no granularity of texture. In one- specimen a pale vacuole-like area was present
in the middle of the length of the • filament; There can, I think, be little doubt
that these bodies are identicalwith those described by Drs. Evans and Steel.
The fact that only mounted specimens came under observation rendered it
impossible to ascertain the character of their behaviour in the blood, but their
general structural features agree very closely with those described by• Drs.
Evans and Steel as present in their specimens, and, as Dr. Lewis pointed out
in regard to the latter, are almost identical with those of the organisms dis-
covered by him in the blood of rats. The measurements given by Dr. Lewis
of the organisms in the rats' blood are. 25.μ b y o . 8 p t o
ι μ ,
p r a c t i c a l l y i d e n -
tical with those of the larger filaments in the present instance.
The above facts clearly go to show one thing, namely, that the term anthrax
has been used very loosely as a descriptive term for various forms of disease in
horses in India, and that some of these are certainly not specific anthrax
dependent on the invasion of the system by Bacillus anthracis.. It is only now
when systematic thermometrical observations are carried out and cultivations
of the blood are conducted that this begins to be appreciable, and it certainly
is very desirable that the matter should be thoroughly investigated and trust-
worthy information obtained to what extent true anthrax really does occur. It
certainly is remarkable that with such extremely common occurrence of so-
called anthrax in horses so little is heard of the disease in cattle.
It also appears that in certain forms of equine disease peculiar spirilloid.
organisms occur in large numbers in the blood, and that the disease has
occurred in healthy animals subsequent to inoculation of such blood, but this is
all which has been as yet demonstrated. The statement that the disease is
closely related to human relapsing fever is certainly not supported by the
thermometrical data, and the truly spirillar nature of the parasitic bodies has
yet to be demonstrated. Even were this conclusively done, there would still
remain an absence of evidence to show that they are causally related to the
disease. There is apparently as yet no evidence that it has been definitely
ascertained that such organisms are. never present in horses in health, as they
B 2