98 Kansas Academy of Science. 



has a wide distribution, and its spores are found wherever 

 there is dirt. Barnyards are veritable repositories for them. 

 Rustj' nails appear to be rendezvous. Even the dirt that be- 

 smears the healthy living child may contain millions of these 

 spores of tetanus bacilli. The spores can only grow when they 

 gain deep entrance into the body and are shut off from oxygen. 



It is known as the Fourth of July bacillus. It was once a 

 custom to exhibit our copious and excessive patriotism with 

 every form of pyrotechnic art. Frequently, premature ex- 

 plosions of the firecrackers, etc., drove the accumulated dirt 

 on the hand, with its numerous spores, deep into the skin, and, 

 as a rule, the obituary column of the local press within a few 

 days would announce the subsequent fate of many of our little 

 patriots. Tetanus has been responsible for immense loss in 

 the livestock industry as well. 



The tetanus bacilli was duly convicted by Von Behring and 

 Kitasato as being responsible for lockjaw. But the bewilder- 

 ing problem to them was. How did it accomplish its dire re- 

 sults? It will be recalled that Davaine and Rayer found the 

 blood of anthrax victims swarming with the microbes — a con- 

 dition sufficient to account for the relation of the germ to the 

 disease. Not so, however, in the case of tetanus. The most 

 diligent search failed to reveal the germ in the blood of their 

 victims. How, then, did it act in its murderous onslaughts? 

 Further study and experimentation proved that the germ in it- 

 self was more or less innocuous, but that its excretion, or the 

 by-products of its metabolism, was the real poisonous agent. 

 This led to a new conception of the destructive action of patho- 

 genic bacteria. It is not the presence of bacteria in them- 

 selves that kills, but the poison, or toxin, they produce or elimi- 

 nate as a result of their growing activities. 



It is, then, the toxin from tetanus that slays. The poison 

 is absorbed by the blood and carried to those vital centers in the 

 brain and cord, and there irritates and paralyzes the nerves 

 which control the muscles and vital organs. Tetanus toxin is 

 in all probability the most poisonous agency known. A fatal 

 dose of strychnine ranges from 30 to 100 milligrams, while .23 

 milligram of the tetanus toxin proves fatal. In other words, 

 it is from 120 to 400 times more poisonous than strychnine. 

 A drop or two of this poison injected into the elephant would 

 result in its death. 



