Another factor, which was equal if not greater than the above in causing the epidemic of 1896 in Louisiana, was the careless disposal made of the carcasses of dead animals. Especially was this true early in the epidemic before scientific knowledge of the cause of the disease and of the prophylactic measures necessary to combat it had been generally disseminated among the people. In many instances it is known that animals were left lying in the woods or fields on the spot where death had overtaken them. In others they were dragged or hauled to the swamps and left exposed to the elements or thrown into the ponds, streams, and marshes. Even when burial was resorted to it was often made at shallow depth, and little attention was paid to the disinfection of the soil or of substances that might have become impregnated with germs or spores from the dead animal. Ignorance of the vital necessity of preventing spore formation resulted in a common lack of effort to prevent all unnecessary escape of blood in handling fresh carcasses, or to destroy by disinfection the spores already formed in blood which had escaped from the bodies of living animals during the course of the disease. Few precautions were taken to keep living animals away from infected localities, or to keep carnivorous animals away from the carcasses of the dead. Hogs and dogs were allowed access to fresh carcasses, thus contracting the disease themselves and spreading the germs over wider areas. Buzzards were also believed to have added to the extensive spread of the contagion by feasting upon infected carcasses and carrying the germs elsewhere upon their feet and bodies. Even the products of soil which had become infected by this careless disposal of carcasses were doubtless in some instances a source of infection. A well-authenticated instance occurred where a number of mules which had previously shown no symptoms of ill health were fed upon a newly purchased lot of rice bran. A few days later anthrax attacked several of them. The bran was suspiciously regarded as being the vehicle in which the spores had been transported and its use was temporarily discontinued. For the ensuing fortnight no more deaths occurred. It happened that by accident the bran was then again used for feeding purposes and three more animals died showing symptoms of anthrax. The use of the bran was then permanently discontinued, the infected premises carefully disinfected, and the disease has not since appeared upon the plantation. A competent veterinarian, who had carefully studied this particular outbreak, gave the opinion that the rice bran was doubtless the source of the infection and was probably a product of rice which had been raised on, infected soil. Without detailing specific cases, it is evident that the careless handling and disposal of infected carcasses, particularly where anthrax is raging in epizootic form, must necessarily result in a wide distribution of the pathogenic germs, whence they may gain access to the animal system in ways so innumerable that intelligent imagination rather than actual observation

can alone be relied upon in many instances to account for the origin of outbreaks of this disease.

STATISTICS ON THE PARISHES INFECTED.

It has not been found possible to obtain complete statistical returns of the number of animals attacked and the losses incurred from all the parishes of the infected territory. Approximate estimates, however, have been received from five contiguous parishes of northeastern Louisiana, which are valuable as showing the virulence of the plague, the species of animals which were most susceptible, the kinds to which it proved most largely fatal, and the pecuniary losses that it inflicted upon the communities.

The following is the statistical history of the epizootic in the abovementioned territory, by parishes:

Table showing number of animals affected with anthrax, number dead from the disease, and value of animals dead from the disease.

COMMENTS ON THE STATISTICAL EXHIBITS.

A study of the above statistics, with reference to the statistical history of anthrax as it has appeared in other countries, will reveal some peculiar and unusual features in the Louisiana epidemic. Sheep, which have generally been given a first rank among the species of animals susceptible to this disease, seem, according to the received returns, to show almost an entire lack of receptivity. It would be interesting to know whether flies played even a more important part in the spread of this epidemic than has been attributed to them, and the natural covering of wool of this species of animal protected them from the attacks of these pests. On the other hand, swine have commonly been regarded as possessing a somewhat limited degree of refractoriness to this plague; yet in the returns above given from Richland and Madison parishes this animal shows a remarkable degree of receptivity, and of those attacked almost all succumbed to the disease. The easy access which these carnivorous animals had to infected carcasses, through the commonly careless disposition made of the latter, naturally suggests itself as the probable cause of this unusual feature of this epidemic. It is also notable that horses and mules showed a greater susceptibility than cattle, though the latter have commonly been regarded elsewhere as yielding more readily to the infection.

REMEDIES, UNSCIENTIFIC AND SCIENTIFIC.

In the early part of the Louisiana epidemic, when ignorance of the pathology of the disease was all but universal among the people, the subject of curative treatment naturally attracted great attention, and the remedies suggested were as varied and innumerable as they were unscientific and ineffectual. As is usual in the early part of anthrax epidemies, before the virus of the contagion has undergone the attenuation which it has often been observed to undergo as the epidemic runs its course, all medicinal agents seemed powerless. Death usually occurred before the need of treatment was discovered. But later on in the epidemic, when the carbuncular form became more common and the swellings presented a definite point for treatment, multitudinous opportunities occurred for popularly recommended unscientific remedies. A few of them were extraordinarily severe and cruel. The swellings were pierced with pointed red-hot irons; concentrated lye was applied to them; they were burned with red-hot shovels; the swollen parts were saturated with turpentine and set fire to; and official record has been made of animals which had one continuous suppurating sore extending from the lower lip to the flank. It has been averred by veterinarians that "many valuable animals died, not from charbon, but from the agonizing and excruciating pain produced by powerful escharotics." As the epidemic progressed, however, and

knowledge of the cause of anthrax became disseminated among the people through the medium of the press and veterinary science, these practices generally gave way to more enlightened methods of treatment. It is well known that where the germs of anthrax have actually entered the circulatory system, especially in considerable numbers, curative treatment is of little or no avail. But the unusual prevalence of the carbuncular form of the malady during this epidemic gave scientific curative treatment a prominence that it would not otherwise have possessed. When the swellings could be discovered in their very incipiency, and the germs had not yet gained the circulatory system, the injection of germicidal solutions into the enlargement seems in some cases to have been followed by good results by destroying the germs in their localized area. Many different solutions were prescribed. A preparation prescribed by the State authorities. was a 5 per cent aqueous solution of carbolic acid; to each ounce of this was sometimes added 2 grains of corrosive sublimate. The injection was made with an ordinary hypodermic syringe. Blistering of the swellings was also recommended, by means of liniments ordinarily composed of agents such as hartshorn, turpentine, camphor, iodine, chloroform, etc., mixed with oil, and the most dependent part of the enlargement was sometimes carefully scarified. The internal treatment prescribed, to be used in connection with the external, was the common purgatives usually recommended in cases of anthrax. Of these curative measures it seems only possible to state that individual experiences occasionally attributed remarkable efficacy to them, but the general history of their use in this epidemic is not calculated to inspire belief in general benefit from their use. Veterinarians reiterated again and again during the course of this epidemic. that the only successful treatment of anthrax is not curative, but preventive; and persistent insistence upon the necessity of prophylactic measures gradually converted the public mind to a belief in them as the only source of relief.

The preventive measures recommended were on two lines:

(1) The treatment of healthy living animals by a process of vaccination which, it was claimed, would render them immune to the disease and the application to their bodies of a preparation to protect them from flies.

(2) The application of such sanitary measures throughout the infected districts as would tend to destroy or neutralize, so far as possible, every condition favorable to the further increase and wider distribution of the microscopical plant life which is known to be the cause of this disease.

The vaccine used in the Louisiana epidemic was the Pasteur anthrax vaccine, and it is said that 20,000 head of stock, mostly mules, were vaccinated. This substance is produced by the artificial cultivation of the virus of anthrax in certain media where by continued exposure

to the air and a high temperature it can be attenuated to an innocuous degree; the animal vaccinated with it suffers from a mild fever, but is then said to become immune to anthrax, at least for a period of some months. No statistical statements have been received by this Department from which can be formulated the general results of the use of this preventive. The application most generally used to protect animals from the attacks of flies was the following formula, namely, common hard soap, one-half pound; fish oil, 2 gallons; water, 1 gallon. Dissolve the soap in boiling water and while still hot add the fish oil and agitate the whole until thoroughly mixed. For use, add to 1 part of the emulsion 8 to 15 parts of cold water, and apply all over the animals. A large or small quantity can be made as desired. The sanitary measures usually recommended will be found in the following report of Dr. Asa N. McQueen, upon the result of his investigations into an outbreak of anthrax in Richland Parish, La. :

REPORT ON ANTHRAX IN LOUISIANA IN 1896.

NEW ORLEANS, LA., June 15, 1896.

SIR: In accordance with your order of the 4th instant, I started on Monday, June 8, to investigate an outbreak of anthrax at Rayville, La., and its vicinity, and arrived there the following afternoon. I readily recognized the disease to be anthrax, and gave the authorities advice for its suppression. Below is my report on the investigation, with a copy of the rules that I gave to the authorities.

Richland Parish, La., is very low and swampy, and is drained by the Bœuf River, which frequently overflows its banks. The upland is a sandy loam and lies in narrow strips from one-fourth mile to 1 mile in width between extensive tracts of wooded swamp land. These woody swamps are nearly always covered with water, and on many farms furnish the only source of water supply for animals turned out to pasture.

The outbreak of anthrax in this parish was, as is nearly always the case in outbreaks of this disease, preceded by a long drouth, during which the water in the swamps and smaller streams ran very low. There can be no doubt, moreover, that this outbreak was made more extensive by the careless disposal of carcasses of animals dead of the disease, the common custom being simply to drag them from the spot where death had occurred across fields, pastures, or highways to the swamps, and there leave them to decompose or be devoured by the dogs and hogs, which here always run at large. Even when burning was resorted to as a mode of destroying the carcasses, the work was only half done. In one place I saw a burned carcass of which at least two-thirds was unconsumed; in fact, it was so little burned that the hair still remained on the under surface of the body, upon which two dogs and three hogs were feeding. I was informed that such was the way that the burning was usually done. I heard of no instances of the burial of carcasses.

The first outbreak that I investigated was on the farm of J. B. Summerlin, situated 5 miles southeast of Rayville, in the midst of a large swamp. On this place there were about 50 head of cattle, of which 2 cows and 1 heifer showed the following symptoms: Swellings about the region of the larynx, point of breast, and undersurface of the abdomen. The respirations were somewhat increased, but I attributed this to the animals having been driven from the pasture a few minutes before. The cattle showed no other signs of sickness, and were feeding well. The swellings had been treated with a blistering mixture containing oil of turpentine, aqua ammonia, vinegar, and coal oil, applied twice daily.