One hundred years of anthrax
- 1Communicable Disease Surveillance Centre, London, UK
- 2Department of Health, London, UK
- Correspondence to: Dr A Nicoll Communicable Disease Surveillance Centre, Health Protection Agency, 61 Colindale Avenue, London NW9 5EQ, UK; anicollphls.org.uk
From wool-sorters’ to mail-sorters’ disease
In this issue of OEM, an article by Tim Carter documents the experience of cutaneous, pulmonary, and abdominal anthrax among wool sorters and others in a rural town (Kidderminster, Worcestershire) in the UK in the early twentieth century.1 At the start of the twenty first century anthrax was an esoteric topic of study, mostly for those interested in zoonoses. This position changed radically following the deliberate anthrax releases in the USA in the autumn of 2001.2 Medline searches for articles on human health relating to anthrax revealed only 57 articles published in 2000, but 414 for 2002 (accessed 28/04/03). The American experience has been extensively documented.2–9 In summary, in September and October 2001 salvoes of sealed envelopes of very fine (weaponised) anthrax powder were posted in sealed envelopes from a New Jersey (USA) postal address to newspaper …
