Anthrax??

The anthrax scare has been discussed in many languages. In Spanish and other languages, it is also called anthrax, but in French it is called "maladie du charbon", coal disease. I thought of "anthracite", hard coal, and anthrax is the Greek word for coal. I have looked at many reports on anthrax, but none of them mentions coal. My guess is that once it was thought to be connected to coal or coal miners, but I can find nothing about this. Can anyone enlighten us?

Ronald Hilton - 10/13/01