Scientific Memoirs by
" Le Progres Medical", 1886-87). Thus, as to general features, anthrax may affect equines
on a large scale, preserving there the characters it displays in bovines and sheep, its com-
moner victims ; it also is distributed endemically, being of telluric though not of miasmatic
origin ; and its severity is hardly less than that of " surra." Next, as to clinical and ana-
tomical diagnosis, "anthrax fever" is the common natural form of the infection, in which the
temperature may reach 105˚—108˚ F., being attended with chills and sweats, restlessness,
distress, troubles of the circulation, exhaustion, stupor, convulsions and coma ; these symp-
toms extending over 12—24 hours, or sooner ending fatally in young and plethoric subjects :
after death the blood is found and remains black, all the internal organs are deeply congested,
with ecchymosis in the intestinal canal and stomach and occasional local sphacelus ; the
lymphatic glands are implicated, and in the horse the superficial and deep connective tissue
shows gelatiniform infiltration ; the scanty urine and stools may be bloody. The charac-
teristic bacillar aspect of the blood in this disease was but very gradually discriminated.
The causation of the malady was for long attributed to collateral conditions—non-sanitary
of all kinds, foul emanations, peculiarities of soil (marshy) and combinations of general
agencies leading to the view of its spontaneous origin : the special operation of flies
(unarmed) on excoriated surfaces was determined by experiment, and it was soon learnt
that the disease is communicable by even slight inoculations, though neither contagious nor
infectious in the ordinary sense. Rats are with difficulty inoculated, and dogs do not suffer
on drinking tainted blood, but the well-known experiments with cultivated bacilli demon-
strate that the apparent immunity of some species of animals is in high degree contingent.
One attack of anthrax does for a time at least protect against re-infection. The above
general view will serve to indicate points of fundamental resemblance between anthrax
fever and the relapsing fever of equines and of man ; also between these and other infective
or septic diseases ; there are differences, which, however, seem subordinate or merely of
degree and not enough to separate the "surra " disease from other members of the class of
acute or sub-acute specific infections. The ultimate difference pertains to the infecting
organism in each instance—see appended table—and as to certain minor variations noted
of the hæmatozoon under review in different animals, they are probably no greater than is
known of the bacillus anthracis in different species. The indigenous race of horses in
India, as of sheep in Algiers, seems far less liable to anthrax than are imported races.
Concluding remarks on the blood-contamination under review. —There is to
note, first, that Dr. Griffith Evans' discovery in 1880 of the protozoid blood
- p a r a s i t e c h a r a c t e r i s i n g t h e e q u i n e " s u r r a " m a l a d y t r u l y m e r i t s t h e e p i t h e t o f
epoch-making ; for until that date no instance was known of the association of
acute infective disease, with organised blood-contamination other than the
protophytal. And even if this example seem exceptional, it yet possesses
much pathological importance as evidence of the close similarity of morbid
processes, whether associated with plant or with animal organisms of elementary
character ; more probably, however, the " surra " affection will not long remain
unique, proving to be only the pioneer of a series of the kind. In the abstract
there seems no valid reason why hæmatozoa living as hœmatophytes should not
be attended with analogous or even identical symptoms of derangement in hosts
of the same species ; but hitherto such an assertion as this, if doubted, could not
be suitably tested, and hence the cognomen of " equine relapsing fever" (employed
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