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OBSERVATIONS on THE TETANUS. 227 
fwelling or inflammation. I dilated the wound and filled it 
with lint moiftened with fpirit of turpentine. This ina 
little while produced a good deal of pain and a great inflam- 
mation in his foot. While I was preparing to treat him in 
the manner I had treated the two former cafes, the pains 
and {pafms in his body fuddenly left him, and in twenty- 
four hours after I faw him, he complained of nothing but 
of the pain and {welling in his foot, which continued for 
feveral weeks and did not leave him till it ended in a fup- 
puration. From the hiftory of thefe. three cafes, I beg 
leave to make the following remarks. 
1. That the predifpofition to the Tetanus depends upon 
relaxation. This relaxation is generally produced by heat; 
but exceflive labour, watchings, marches, or fatigue from 
any caufe, all produce it likewife, and hence we find it more 
frequent from wounds received in battles, than from fimi- 
lar wounds received in any other way. Thefe wounds 
more certainly produce the Tetanus, if they have been 
preceded for fome time with warm weather. Dr. Shoepft, 
the phyfician general of the Anfpach troops that ferved at 
the fiege of York in the year 1781, informed me of a fin- 
gular fa& upon this fubjeé&t. Upon converfing with the: 
French furgeons after the capitulation, he was informed: 
by them that the troops who arrived juft before the fiege 
from the Weft-Indies with Count de Grafle, were the only 
troops belonging to their nation that fuffered from the 
Tetanus. There was not a fingle inftance of that difor- 
der among the troops who had {pent a winter in Rhode-- 
land. 
2. As the Tetanus feems to be occafioned by relaxati-- 
on, the medicines indicated to cure it are fuch only as are 
calculated to remove this relaxation and to reftore a tone to 
the fyftem. The bark and wine appear to aét in this way. 
The operation of the blifters is of a more complicated na- 
ture. That they are fedative and antifpafmodic in fevers 
is univerfally acknowledged, but in the peculiar flate of - 
irritability: 
