Leaflets for Farmers, No 27.

Opunake Times, Volume III, Issue 127, 20 September 1895, Page 3

Leaflets for Farmers, No 27.

ANTHRAX. (By J. A. Gilruth, M.R.C.V.S., Government Veterinarian.) Anthrax is a blood-disease, which may affect men and nearly all animals, due to the presence and multiplication in the blood of a minute rod-like vegetable parasite known as the bacillus anthracis. Diseased animals do not transmit the virus simply by association with other animals, as is the case with many specific diseases; the virus must be introduced into the blood stream directly through a wound or abrasion in the skin, or through the alimentary canal, before the affection can be communicated, and, as the slightest wound or abrasion is sufficient to allow the entrance of these organisms, it has been truly said that the carcase of an animal dead of anthrax is more dangerous than a living diseased animal. In from two to twelve hours after the introduction of the virus symptoms may generally be noticed, but, as the course of the disease is, in cattle especially, very rapid .usually the first intimation the stockowner has of its existence is the sudden death of an animal that a few hours previously was apparently in the best of health. Such an occurrence is always very suspicious of anthrax, more especially if followed by other deaths within a day or two. Occasionally, but more especially in sheep, the affected animal shows certain symptoms, such as dullness, disinclination to move, shivering, trembling, and often, shortly before death, a bloody discharge from nose and anus. In swine there is usually a considerable swelling, at first hot and painful, in the region of the throat and neck, which is fairly diagnostic. As the disease approaches a fatal termination, the shivering fits become more intense, and finally the animal drops down suddenly and expire?.

All carcases should be burned where they lie, and more especially the one used to obtain materials from to forward here. This insures absolute destruction of everything—blood, excrement, &c, —about the carcase, and also purifies the ground of any germs that may have lodged there. It is impossible for one, having anything to dp with a case of suspected anthrax, to be too careful of his own safety, as abrasions almost unobservable to the naked eye on the hands of an operator have been known to be the means of allowing the entrance of these deadly germs into the blood with fatal results. It is always advisable to wear gloves when manipulating such a carcase. Knives or other instruments should be kept in boiling water for half an hour after use.