Sunday 26 August 2018

Do You Remember This One?

boils break out across your skin, 



swelling red pustules with a trademark black centre cover you, the early symptoms resemble those of the common flu: your head begins to ache; your temperature rises; a general sense of weakness envelops your body; your stomach starts rumbling; you begin to cough incessantly, then things get serious: you may go into seizures; your organs begin failing, when the medical examiners or the veterinarians cut you open, they will find that your blood has gone black, and that certain organs, particularly the spleen, have turned into masses of melting flesh, in the fifth century bc, Hippocrates dubbed the disease anthrakes, from the ancient Greek for “charcoal.” You may also recall it as the fifth plague of Egypt, it is of course Anthrax, and it is back, with a vengeance, although I have only heard of it now, it appears that the outbreak in August 2016, could happen again, and this year it looks like it has, I have to say over the years I occasionally read of mysterious reindeer deaths, I wonder if it was anthrax in those, but due to the location it was not reliably diagnosed?


No comments: