Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary - anthrax

 noun  Etymology: Middle English antrax carbuncle, from Latin ~, from Greek, coal, carbuncle  Date: 1861 an infectious disease of warm-blooded animals (as cattle and sheep) caused by a spore-forming bacterium (Bacillus anthracis), transmissible to humans especially by the handling of infected products (as wool), and characterized by cutaneous ulcerating nodules or by often fatal lesions in the lungs; also the bacterium causing ~