Anthrax is the ideal candidate for a unifying history. By the end of the period studied, it was known to be a single condition caused by a spore-forming bacillus that was present in the body fluids of infected animals, spread through spores in the soil and on vegetation and sometimes reached a biological dead end by infecting a person. It had long been an endemic infection in both wild and domesticated animals in parts of the world. At the start date for The Making of Modern Anthrax few of these features were known and conditions eventually linked to the anthrax bacillus presented in many novel settings and were characterised in many different ways. They became so apparent in the second half of the nineteenth century that they could not be ignored, as rapidly fatal illnesses were seen in previously uninfected animal populations and in humans exposed to animal products. Transmission was global, as the disease was carried by the growing trade in animal products, with the resistant spores present as fellow travellers in cargoes of animal feeds, bones, hides, hair and wool.