What is "malignant pustule"

Pustule \Pus"tule\ (?; 135), n. [L. pustula, and pusula: cf. F. pustule.] (Med.) A vesicle or an elevation of the cuticle with an inflamed base, containing pus.

Malignant pustule. See under Malignant.

malignant \ma*lig"nant\, a. [L. malignans, -antis, p. pr. of malignare, malignari, to do or make maliciously. See Malign, and cf. Benignant.]

1. Disposed to do harm, inflict suffering, or cause distress; actuated by extreme malevolence or enmity; virulently inimical; bent on evil; malicious.

   A malignant and a turbaned Turk.
   --Shak.

2. Characterized or caused by evil intentions; pernicious. ``Malignant care.''
   --Macaulay.

   Some malignant power upon my life.
   --Shak.

   Something deleterious and malignant as his touch.
   --Hawthorne.

3. (Med.) Tending to produce death; threatening a fatal issue; virulent; as, malignant diphtheria.

   Malignant pustule (Med.), a very contagious disease produced by infection of subcutaneous tissues with the bacterium Bacillus anthracis. It is transmitted to man from animals and is characterized by the formation, at the point of reception of the infection, of a vesicle or pustule which first enlarges and then breaks down into an unhealthy ulcer. It is marked by profound exhaustion and often fatal. The disease in animals is called charbon; in man it is called cutaneous anthrax, and formerly was sometimes called simply anthrax.

n. a form of anthrax infection that begins as papule that becomes a vesicle and breaks with a discharge of toxins; symptoms of septicemia are severe with vomiting and high fever and profuse sweating; the infection is often fatal [syn: cutaneous anthrax]