Cutaneous Anthrax and Gastrontestinal Tract Anthrax

Cutaneous Anthrax

This is a form of the Anthrax diseases that enter through the skin and infect the person. Contact with the skin or wool of an infected animal could pass the disease on to you.

Symptoms

First there is swelling around the infected area and then a papule, blisters, and finally a black scar that follows the outer edge of the swelling.

Tests That Should Be Done

If you believe that possibly you have this form of this disease you should get a culture of the lesion. This culture can them be tested. From the test results you will know if the Anthrax spores have entered your body or not.

Gastrontestinal Tract Anthrax

This form of the disease is the most deadly. It will enter your system through ingesting tainted food sources. Since animals can be a large source of the disease, most people with this type of infection get it from eating tainted animals.

Symptoms

Usual symptoms with this form is vomiting (usually with blood), anorexia, and bloody diarrhea.

Figure 1. Extensive edema and hemorrhage involving the caecum in a patient with intestinal anthrax.

 

žFigure 2. Anthrax bacilli (arrow) within mesenteric lymph node tissue.

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Figure 3. A. Severe edema of a small bowel loop in intestinal anthrax with a large mesenteric  lymph node held between the surgeon’s fingers...