[infominer]

The "official" explanation needs to be dissected by Freepers. Inhalation and animal skins don't mesh:

1) According to the report, the animal skins were transported from Africa. Although reported as "raw skins" there most likely would have been some processing of the skins to prevent rotting.

2)Additional processing would be required before utilizing the skins for drums or anything else.

As such, the spores getting aerosolized (or even still existing on the skins) when struck with the drumstick is highly unlikely. Think! Replies and criticisms accepted.

[TrebleRebel]

With data, there's no need to think:

http://www.nytimes.com/books/first/g/guillemin-anthrax.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

For example, in one report of 117 cases of "woolsorter's disease" (as anthrax has been called since early industrial times), strung out over more than two decades, from 1933 to 1955, there was only one (fatal) case of inhalation anthrax; the rest were cutaneous. Other scattered fatal cases of inhalation anthrax were reported in the United States during this same time period: a football player who may have contracted the disease from playing-field soil, a San Francisco woman who beat bongo drums made of infected skin, a construction worker who handled contaminated felt, and several gardeners whose infection was traced to contaminated bone meal fertilizer. In the best-researched incident, in Manchester, New Hampshire, in 1957, inhalation anthrax killed four woolen-mill workers. In the same year, a man and woman living near a Philadelphia tannery also died of inhalation anthrax.