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THE AMERICAN MUSEUM JOURNAL 



—there have been only 6 cases of ty- 

 phoid and one of paratyphoid among 

 probably now nearly 1,000,000 men! 

 Truly marvelous ! 



Now all this is the direct result of 

 hacteriological lahoratory ivorl-. Was it 

 not worth while ? Has it not "benefited 

 the human race"'? Are you not glad 

 that your son is thus protected? 



I may add that the German armies 

 show a similar absence of typhoid. I 

 have seen no figures but only general 

 statements. 



Tetanus or ''Locl--jaiv." —Yew people 

 realize what terrible suffering this dis- 

 ease causes. The mind of the patient is 

 perfectly clear, usually to the very end, 

 so that his sufferings are felt in their 

 full intensity. All of my readers have 

 had severe cramps in the sole of the foot 

 or calf of the leg. The pain is some- 

 times almost "unbearable." In tetanus 

 not the muscles of the jaw alone are 

 thus gripped, Init the muscles all over 

 the body are in cramps ten or twenty- 

 fold more severe, cramps so horrible 

 that in the worst cases the muscles of 

 the trunk arch the body like a bridge 

 and onlv the heels and head touch the 

 bed ! 



Never shall I forget a fine young soldier 

 during the Civil War who soon after Gettys- 

 burg manifested the disease in all its dread- 

 ful horror. His body was arched as I have 

 described it. When at intervals he lay re- 

 laxed, a heavy footstep in the ward, or the 

 bang of a door, would instantly cause the 

 most frightful spasms all over his now 

 bowed body and he hissed his pitiful groans 

 between tightly clenched teeth. The ward 

 was emptied, a half -moon pad was hung be- 

 tween the two door-knobs to prevent any 

 banging; even the sentry, pacing his monot- 

 onous steps just outside the ward, had to be 

 removed beyond earshot. . . . The spasms 

 became more and more severe, the intervals 

 shorter and shorter; it did not need even a 

 footfall now to produce the spontaneous 

 cramps, until finally a cruelly merciful at- 

 tack seized upon the muscles of his throat 

 and then his body was relaxed once more 

 and forever. He had been choked to death. 



Do you wonder at the joy unspeak- 

 able which we surgeons have felt of late 

 years as we have conquered this fearful 

 dragon? In 1884 the peculiar germ, 

 shaped like a miniature drumstick, was 

 discovered. Its home is in the intes- 

 tines of animals, especially of horses. 

 The soil of France and Belgium has 

 l)een roamed over by animals and ma- 

 nured for over 2,000 years, even before 

 Julius Caesar conquered and praised the 

 Belgians. The men in the trenches and 

 their clothing are besmeared and be- 

 mired with this soil, rich in all kinds of 

 bacteria, including those of tetanus, gas 

 gangrene, etc. When the flesh is torn 

 open by a shell, ragged bits of the muddy 

 clothing or other similarly infected 

 foreign l)odies are usually driven into 

 the depths of the wound. ISTow the tet- 

 anus bacilli and the bacilli of "gas gan- 

 grene" are the most virulent of all 

 germs. It takes 225,000,000 of the 

 ordinary pus-producing germs to cause 

 an abscess and 1,000^00.000 to kill, 

 while 1,000 tetanus bacilli are enough 

 to kill. This readily explains the fright- 

 ful mortality from tetanus during the 

 Civil War. It killed 90 patients out of 

 every hundred attacked. 



In the early months of the Great War 

 the armies suddenly placed in the field 

 were so huge that there was not a suf- 

 ficient supply of the antitoxin of tet- 

 anus. Hence a very considerable num- 

 ber of cases of tetanus appeared. Xow 

 it is very different. At present every 

 wounded soldier, the moment he reaches 

 a surgeon is given a dose of antitetanic 

 serum. As a result, tetanus has been 

 almost iviped off the slate. I say "al- 

 most." because to be effective the serum 

 must be given within a few hours. The 

 poor fellows who lie for hours and even 

 days in No Man's Land cannot be 

 reached until too late. All the surgeons 

 on both sides concur in saying that 

 tetanus, while it still occurs here and 

 there, has been practically conquered. 



Ever]! step of this worh has been ac- 

 complished by the bacteriologists and 



