OBSERVATIONS on tHe TETANUS. 229 
and filled it with the fpirit of turpentine. I was not fur- 
prifed at its good effects in this cafe, for I was prepared 
to expect them. 
I find a remarkable cafe related in Dr. W. Monroe’s 
Thefis, publifhed in Edinburgh in the year 1783, of a 
black girl who had a Tetanus from running a nail in her 
foot, being perfectly cured by deep and extenfive incifions 
being made in the wounded part by Dr. John Bell, of the 
ifland of Grenada. 
It is by producing inflammation in a particular part, 
and tone in the whole fyftem, I apprehend that the am- 
putation of a wounded limb fometimes cures a Tetanus; 
and it is becaufe the degrees of both are too inconfiderable 
to oppofe the violence of the fpafms in the advanced ftages 
of the Tetanus, that amputation often fails of fuccefs. 
I have been informed by a phyfician who refided fome 
time at St. Croix, that the negroes on that ifland always 
apply a plaifter made of equal parts of falt and tallow to 
their frefh wounds, in order to prevent a locked jaw. 
The falt always produces fome degree of inflammation. 
If the facts that havesbeen ftated are true, and the in-= 
ferences that have been drawn from them are juft, how 
fhall we account for the action of opium in curing this 
diforder? Ido not deny its good effects in many cafes, but 
I believe it has failed in four cafes out of five in the hands 
of moft practitioners. It is remarkable that it fucceeds 
only where it is given in very large dofes. In thefe cafes 
I would fuppofe that its fedative powers are loft in its fti- 
mulating. It is upon a footing, therefore, in one re{pea, 
with the flimulating medicines that have been mentioned; 
but from its being combined with a fedative quality, it is 
probably inferior to moft of them. I am the more inclin- 
ed to adopt this opinion, from an account I once received 
from Dr. Robert, of the ifland of Dominique, who in- 
formed me that after having cured a negro man of a Te- 
tanus with large dofes of opium, he was afterwards feized 
Gg with 
