Anthrax is an acute infectious disease caused by the spore-forming bacterium Bacillus anthracis. Anthrax most commonly occurs in wild and domestic lower vertebrates (cattle, sheep, goats, camels, antelopes, and other herbivores), but it can also occur in humans when they are exposed to infected animals or tissue from infected animals.
Anthrax is most common in agricultural regions where it occurs in animals. These include South and Central America, Southern and Eastern Europe, Asia, Africa, the Caribbean, and the Middle East. When anthrax affects humans, it is usually due to an occupational exposure to infected animals or their products. Workers who are exposed to dead animals and animal products from other countries where anthrax is more common may become infected with B. anthracis (industrial anthrax). Anthrax in wild livestock has occurred in the United States.
How Anthrax is transmitted?
Anthrax infection can occur in three forms: cutaneous (skin), inhalation, and gastrointestinal. B. anthracis spores can live in the soil for many years, and humans can become infected with anthrax by handling products from infected animals or by inhaling anthrax spores from contaminated animal products. Anthrax can also be spread by eating undercooked meat from infected animals. It is rare to find infected animals in the United States.
Symptoms of Anthrax:
Symptoms of disease vary depending on how the disease was contracted, but symptoms usually occur within 7 days.
Cutaneous: Most (about 95%) anthrax infections occur when the bacterium enters a cut or abrasion on the skin. Skin infection begins as a raised itchy bump that resembles an insect bite but within 1-2 days develops into a vesicle and then a painless ulcer, usually 1-3 cm in diameter, with a characteristic black necrotic (dying) area in the center. Lymph glands in the adjacent area may swell.
Inhalation: Initial symptoms may resemble a common cold. After several days, the symptoms may progress to severe breathing problems and shock. Inhalation anthrax is usually fatal.
Intestinal: The intestinal disease form of anthrax may follow the consumption of contaminated meat and is characterized by an acute inflammation of the intestinal tract. Initial signs of nausea, loss of appetite, vomiting, fever are followed by abdominal pain, vomiting of blood, and severe diarrhea.
Homeopathic Remedies for Anthrax
The remedy Anthracinum is prepared from the spleen of infected sheep, and was introduced into homeopathy by the veterinarian Lux, a colleague of Hering, as early as 1830. It quickly proved its worth by preventively and curing the disease in numerous outbreaks among livestock in the 19th century.
In the event of known exposure, during the incubation period, or in a high-risk situation, Anthracinum 30 should be taken three times in a 12-hour period for 2 weeks, or if need be until the emergency subsides.
For early flu-like symptoms, typhoid remedies like Bryonia or Baptisia, while in the more advanced septicemic phase the remedies include Lachesis, Arsenicum, Crotalus horridus, Secale, Carbolic. Acid., Mercurius, Sulphur, Silica, and Arsenicum iod.
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