Text book of veterinary medicine, Volume 4 (of 5)Law, James
Science
Text book of veterinary medicine, Volume 4 (of 5)
Law, James
Veterinary medicine
As in animals man suffers from ingestion and inhalation of the bacillus;
and sometimes widespread mortality comes in this way. Meat just killed
may be thoroughly disinfected by the secretions of a healthy stomach,
yet the bacillus may pass through in an envelope of fat, in an
undigested mass or during an attack of dyspepsia, and infect the
intestines. The spores are proof against the gastric juice, and as they
are produced in a few hours after death the meat of an anthrax animal
must always be considered as exceedingly dangerous.
Man is much less susceptible than some other animals and the disease
wherever inoculated tends to remain for a time localized, in the skin,
the lungs or the bowels. The forms of the disease are _malignant
carbuncle_ (pustule), _malignant œdema_, _intestinal anthrax_, and
_pulmonary anthrax_.
_Lesions._ The morbid histology is in the main the same as described in
animals. In the protracted cases there is the same dark nonærated blood,
forming a loose coagulum, the crenated or distorted blood globules
aggregated in irregular masses, the escape and solution of the
hæmoglobin so as to stain the white tissues, the enlargement of the
spleen which is gorged with dark blood, and the hyperæmia of the liver
and lymph glands. There is in the affected tissues and usually in the
blood the characteristic large bacillus anthracis.
In the _malignant vesicle_ there is first a minute, firm central, dark
nodule like an insect bite with a lighter colored areola, and showing
not only hyperæmia, but blocking of the capillaries, and minute areas of
extravasation. Somewhat later the dark centre is surmounted by a small
vesicle, beneath which the tissues are becoming necrotic, and the area
of congestion and extravasation has extended and thus the local disease
advances by a constant invasion of new tissue which in its turn becomes
the seat of coagulation necrosis. On microscopic section the central
necrotic part shows the cells of the rete Malpighi separated by a finely
granular coagulum, and the papillæ are greatly swollen by serous and
hæmorrhagic exudate. The cell nuclei are necrotic and no longer take a
stain. The capillaries are gorged with red globules and bacilli. In the
surrounding tissues there is much congestion and exudation, with
numerous points of extravasation, but the abundant multinuclear cells
retain their staining power.
In _Anthrax Œdema_, which appears in parts like the eyelids, neck and
forearm where there is an abundance of loose connective tissue and a
scanty blood supply, there is no firm central nodule, but a diffuse soft
infiltration, with points or patches of a yellow or reddish color. The
capillaries are congested, with minute emboli and extravasations and
there is an excessive and rapidly spreading exudation. It shows a great
tendency to early general infection and may end in vesication and local
gangrene or in favorable cases in resolution.
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