Introduction: anthrax history, disease and ecology.

The familiarity with the ancient disease anthrax from the second millennium B.C. through the second millennium A.D. is reviewed, providing the backdrop to the modern understanding of this disease as covered in the remainder of the volume. By means of an overview of the aetiology, ecology, epidemiology, clinical manifestations, pathology and bacteriology of the naturally acquired disease, this opening chapter also lays down the groundwork for the subsequent state-of-the-art chapters.