The anthrax disease, though little is generally known of it, is one to which attention is every now and again drawn in an acute manner. rever it is reported amongst live stock, the government of the locality stope in and slaughters without mercy. disease seems to be easily communicable to man, and we had simultaneously the other day reporte from a town on the border of Victoria and
thrax cases amongst humans New South Wales of several rar also of cases amongst the horses and cattle in the vicinity. It is a popular belief that the disease can be traced to Japanese shaving Parliament will not meet before brushes, the hairs or bristles of which are said to come from Manchurian ponies, and the health authorities have spasmodic bouts of energy tracing shaving and other brushes which are supposed to have come into Australia several years ago, before their importation was prohibited. One is disposed to think that the longevity of the disease in brushes ex, to the sun and air in barber's windows for a number of years is somewhat exaggerated, and that the health authorities are sheltering themselves behind anti-Japanese prejudice.
There is little question that, so far as Australia is concerned, it is a fearsome disease, creating panic in places, though at the same time not really worthy to rank in the first line of notifiable disease. -Probably it is the mere idea of human infection from a live animal, with 33 per cent. of fatalities, which makes anthrax receive as much attention in Australia as does rabies in the old country.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.