GUN SHOT WOUNDS AND TETANUS. 153 



It grows better also in tissues whose resistance is lessened — bruised or 

 burned tissues, tissues containing hematoniata, etc., and herein may 

 be said to be the superiority of these wounds over the ordinary wounds 

 from nails, slivers, etc. 



7. The tetanus bacillus has been found a number of times in the 

 street dirt in cities where the disease is common. 



These are the chief arguments in favor of each of these views, and I 

 think you will admit that they are not conclusive for either side. When 

 my attention was first called to the question. I was impressed with the 

 possibility of the presence of the bacillus in the cartridges, and I went 

 to work on the supposition that as this bacillus is under certain con- 

 ditions quite difficult to cultivate, it might be that some changes in ex- 

 perimental technique might give better results than had heretofore been 

 obtained. Of course the ideal method of procedure would be to produce 

 in the experimental animals just such wounds as we meet with in the 

 human subject, but this, on account of the smallness of the animals, 

 the relative thickness of their skin, etc., would seem practically impos- 

 sible. 



My first experiments were made with reference to the fact that in 

 order to cause tetanus it is necessary that the bacilli have a chance to 

 develop a certain amount of their toxin before they are destroyed by 

 the protective agencies of the body. Clean tetanus spores injected into 

 an animal will not cause tetanus. With this in view, I mixed a num- 

 ber of samples of powder from blank cartridges with nutrient glucose 

 agar, which, after solidification, I imbedded in deep incisions in the 

 thighs of guinea pigs, afterwards sewing the wounds up closely. A 

 series of 21 such experiments was wholly negative. 



It next occurred to me as possible that the chemical constituents of 

 the gunpowder, when brought into solution in the tissues, might in- 

 hibit the growth of the bacilli, as under experimental conditions it is 

 hardly possible to get the grains of powder so well scattered as in a 

 wound. Accordingl}', I made a long series of experiments in which I 

 diah'zed out the soluble salts in the powder through collodion sacs, and 

 then made anaerobic cultures, by Wright's method and in hydrogen, tak- 

 ing glucose bullion, with or without peptone, and glucose litmus gelatin, 

 with or without peptone, for my culture media. These cultures were 

 allowed to incubate for some days, as the tetanus organism is a slow 

 grower. For a time I made injections into guinea pigs from all of these 

 cultures which showed any gi'owth whatever — a number of them were 

 wholly sterile. This I did because I thought I might on microscopic 

 examination miss a few tetanus bacilli. Later I made injections only 

 from those cultures which showed on microscopic examination long 

 bacilli. The inoculations were made in various ways. One set of six 

 was made into seared tissue on the edges of deep incisions into the 

 thighs of guinea pigs. Another set was made into the suppurating area 

 produced by deep injections of turpentine, and in another the gun- 

 powder cultures were mixed with culture of micrococcus prodigiosus, 

 as the presence of aerobic organisms is known to facilitate the develop- 

 ment of the tetanus organisms. The majority, however, were simply 

 deep injections into the thigh muscles of guinea pigs — usually 1 c.c. of 

 the culture. I regret to say that I did not keep an exact record of the 

 20 



