Composer Ralph Vaughan Williams provided the affecting mood music for the scene. The episode "Diagnosis: Danger" (1963) from the series Alfred Hitchcock Presents concerns Health Department officials working to contain an anthrax outbreak. Anthrax attacks have featured in the storylines of various television episodes and films. A Criminal Minds episode follows the attempt to identify an attacker who released anthrax spores in a public park. The American thrash metal band Anthrax gets its name from the disease. BBC drama Silent Witness follows criminal cases from the perspective of forensic pathologists and forensic scientists. Series 16 episodes 3 and 4 expose a case of genetically modified anthrax. The 2013 book Russian Roulette by Anthony Horowitz contains a young protagonist who is described to have escaped from an anthrax outbreak. In the 2021 film, The Power of the Dog, directed by Jane Campion and based on the novel by Thomas Savage, a key character dies from sepsis caused by anthrax. Other animals
Anthrax is especially rare in dogs and cats, as is evidenced by a single reported case in the United States in 2001. Anthrax outbreaks occur in some wild animal populations with some regularity.Russian researchers estimate arctic permafrost contains around 1.5 million anthrax-infected reindeer carcasses, and the spores may survive in the permafrost for 105 years. A risk exists that global warming in the Arctic can thaw the permafrost, releasing anthrax spores in the carcasses. In 2016, an anthrax outbreak in reindeer was linked to a 75-year-old carcass that defrosted during a heat wave.
A two-month course of antibiotics such as ciprofloxacin, levofloxacin and doxycycline after exposure can also prevent infection. If infection occurs, treatment is with antibiotics and possibly antitoxin. The type and number of antibiotics used depend on the type of infection. Antitoxin is recommended for those with widespread infection.A rare disease, human anthrax is most common in Africa and central and southern Asia. It also occurs more regularly in Southern Europe than elsewhere on the continent and is uncommon in Northern Europe and North America. Globally, at least 2,000 cases occur a year, with about two cases a year in the United States. Skin infections represent more than 95% of cases. Without treatment the risk of death from skin anthrax is 23.7%. For intestinal infection the risk of death is 25 to 75%, while respiratory anthrax has a mortality of 50 to 80%, even with treatment. Until the 20th century anthrax infections killed hundreds of thousands of people and animals each year. Anthrax has been developed as a weapon by a number of countries. In herbivorous animals infection occurs when they eat or breathe in the spores while grazing. Animals may become infected by killing and/or eating infected animals. Etymology
The English name comes from anthrax (ἄνθραξ), the Greek word for coal, possibly having Egyptian etymology, because of the characteristic black skin lesions developed by people with a cutaneous anthrax infection. The central black eschar surrounded by vivid red skin has long been recognised as typical of the disease.