Although anthrax is now on the radar screens of many Americans for the first time, Madisonians of a different era had a brush with the disease-causing germ nearly a century ago.
Long before CNN brought its viewers minute-by-minute reports of the latest mailroom anthrax citings across the United States, the Wisconsin State Journal, in August 1909, reported of \mystery in outbreak of anthrax among cows at university farm.""
The story begins earlier that summer on the UW-Madison campus dairy farm.
According to State Journal reports from August, 1909, (Daily Cardinal archives from 1909 are unavailable) an outbreak of anthrax among swine in the university's dairy herd was discovered when a farm attendant skinned a dead goat, finding evidence that the animal was diseased.
""In skinning the carcass, this person noticed what seemed [to be] peculiar germ formations and mentioned the fact to someone connected with the hygiene department,"" the Aug. 27, 1909 State Journal noted.
The department then determined that this animal, and in turn others, were infected with anthrax.
The next step was to place all of the university's livestock and related workers under a quarantine.
On August 27, the State Journal offered a description of this situation, which played out with an air of uncertainty.
""An air of mystery surrounds the situation at the university dairy barn during the quarantine of the herd and the attendants, and scarcely anyone knows what is being done but the men who work there,"" the newspaper reported.
""A large carpenters' brace blocks the street near the swine barns running to the dairy barn,"" the State Journal report continued. ""A yellow sign with 'quarantine' printed on it warns all from passing further onward.""
The men who worked there took precautions, including changing clothes when they entered and exited the dairy grounds. In addition, sales of milk or cream to regular patrons was temporarily discontinued.
In the midst of the situation, the U.S. Department of Agriculture intervened, expressing a lack of concern about the overall danger of the situation. Spread of the disease, the department determined, was not likely.
""The methods that have been devised for controlling the spread of anthrax have gotten it so well under control wherever it has been developed that its serious spread is not feared,"" the State Journal confidently reported Aug. 23, 1909.
However, according to university records, the university cow and swine herds continued to perish throughout the fall and winter of 1909.
The need to quarantine and dispose of these infected animals led to the 1910 construction of a building that today houses the university Carrot and Beet Lab. According to Jim Feldman's ""The Buildings of the University of Wisconsin-Madison,"" a University Archives-published chronicle of UW-Madison facilities, the building on Herrick Drive, near the Walnut Street Greenhouses, was later modified in 1960 to remove the crematorium and add a cold room for the Carrot and Beet Lab.
Meanwhile, animals that were not incinerated were buried, leading to the next chapter in UW-Madison's anthrax saga.
According to the Feldman publication, buried animals contaminated a site off of Willows Beach, near Picnic Point. This fact came into play decades later, when in the early '90s the plot was considered a prospective site for a new Crew House.
Now, according to Steve Ventura, a UW-Madison professor of environmental studies and soil science, the plot is ""basically a grassy piece of land that should not be disturbed.""
UW-Madison Safety Director David Drummond said although the precise burial area has never been pinpointed, there was concern because the proposed crew site was close to where contaminated animals were believed to have been buried.
""We were in the mode of being cautious, if and when people wanted to dig,"" he said.
This site was ultimately rejected in favor of a massive renovation of the current Crew House on Babcock Drive, although Drummond said the anthrax possibility was not a factor in the decision.
The burial area, according to Drummond, does not pose a threat today, as the anthrax spores would not likely be alive in the damp soil.
In fact, Drummond said, situations like this are probably not uncommon on farms across Wisconsin, where infected animals were buried over the years.
""This is not something that can move through ground water,"" he said.
