Anthrax Through The Ages
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This film charts some significant events and depictions in the modern history of anthrax, a disease caused by a bacterium: Bacillus anthracis. Known during the nineteenth century by a variety of names – including woolsorters’ disease, malignant pustule, charbon, milzbrand, splenic fever, Siberian plague and ”la maladie de Bradford” – it was widely feared as an industrial disease of the wool trade. This arises in contrast to the prevalent contemporary understanding of anthrax as a weapon of war and an agent of bioterrorism. Although the identity of anthrax is very different today from its identity in the 1800s, the fear which it invoked remains strong. |
