ANTHRAX.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXIV, Issue 173, 22 July 1903, Page 4

ANTHRAX.

Unfortunately there seems to' be little doubt that anthrax has again appeared in this province. The Government veterinary expert, Mr Gilruth, has examined the blood of two cows which died last week under auspicious circumstances at Piikekohe, and he has found anthrax bacillus present in large quantities. The bodies of the dead cattle were cremated by the owner after the blood was secured, and doubtless every effort will be made to prevent the spread of this fell disease. But the frequent outbreaks in different quarters of the colony point clearly to the necessity for more stringent precautions on the part of stock cwners and officials, if we are to be secure from the attacks of this terrible disorder. The most alarming feature , about this disease is the difficulty of extirpating it when once it has gained foothold. Anthrax is an acute fever, which is due u> the presence in the blood of a minute fungus, endowed with marvellous powers of reproduction, and exceedingly tenacious of life. In the blood vessels the rod-shaped microbes reproduce themselves by simple fission or cleavage, with such rapidity that in a few hours the blood of the infected animal literally swarms with them. When the veins are choked with these microbes and the b'ood is poisoned by their excretions, the victim soon dies; and if the body is not opened or cut, the bacilli, deprived of cxygen, perish also. But if the carcase is skinned or opened while the bacilli are still alive, the anthrax microbe proceeds to reproduce itself in an even more dangerous form. The rods germinate, and the spores, or seeds, produced are capable of reproducing the disease in any living animal inoculated with them. But in this process of transformation the microbe bacillus immensely increases its vitality. Boiling water, which will l'ill the original rods in a few seconds, has no effect upon the spores, even after

several minutes' immersion. They may be frozen without any serious injury, and they will endure soaking for a week in carbolic acid solution, which would kill the parent microbe rods in two minutes. It is thus easy to see how, once exposed to the air, the anthrax bacillus will multiply with extreme rapidity, and, resisting all changes of weather and temperature, may, as in Engknd, become permanently established in a country which it has once infected.

It is necessary to add that while anthrax may cause enormous loss to stock-owners throughout the country, the danger by no means stops there. The disease is communicable to man. In a recent report issued by the Department of Agriculture, Mr Gilruth mentions a case in the Waikato, in which a man died from anthrax contracted in skinning a dead bullock. In another case, in JSiorth Taranaki, the disease—happily a mild attack—was conveyed through an accidental scratch on the arm, by means of a towel which had been some days before used to dry some knives that had been used in performing a postmortem on an infected cow. In this instance the knives had been cleaned with a disinfectant, but not sufficiently to obviate the dreadful effects of the disease. Under such circumstances Mr Gilruth does well to urge upon all farmers and stock-owners the necessity for reporting all suspicious cases at once to the Department, and for burying in lime, without skinning or cutting, the carcases of all animals that have died from mysterious or doubtful complaints.

There is no doubt that these outbreaks are recurring with sufficient frequency to justify a certain degree of alarm. In November last there were two or more eases in the Waikato; in February this year there was another outbreak in Southland; now we have a recrudescence of the disease in the Waikato again. Nor is it reasonable to assume that all cases which have occurred have been recognised or duly reported. It is now well established that anthrax is communicable through infected bones and bonedust, and it is to this source that probably all recent occurrences of the disease in New Zealand can be traced. In the Southland cases mentioned above, the cows which died of the complaint had access to bags of bonedust used in manuring a turnip field, and it is well known that cattle, on land deficient in phosphates, will lick up bonedust greedily. The occurrence ot the disease in the North Island is probably due to a similar cause, and it is therefore urgently necessary that something should be done in the way of disinfecting imported bones and bone manures. So far back as 1901 Mr Gilruth advised that sterilising plants should be erected at one or more of our chief ports, and that all imported bones should be subjected to a temperature that would be cci tiiin to kill the anthrax IShoillus. The Indian guarantee for "steamed" bones is said to be worthless; but if delivery could be obtained only after the bones had passed through this process at our own ports, there would be some hope of security for our stock-owners. The only difficulty about llus scheme is the cost of the plant, which may run from £2000 to £4000. At the same time the risk to the whole colony is tremendous, and the loss which we would all sustain —to say) nothing of the danger to human the disease were once established here is quite incalculable. Several of our members— notably Messrs. Lang, Massey, aud Houston —have done their best to get a steriliser erected at Auckland, and it seems likely that one will be shortly put up at the Bluff. This is a step in the right direction, and ,we hope that our members will use their utmost energies to persuade Government to undertake this expenditure to preserve the public health, and to ensure the safety of our great pastoral industries from this dreadful scourge.