BY C. J. POUND, F.R.5I.S. XV 



tion and gradually extending to all parts of the body. It is 

 more commonly the result of some abrasion of the skin, especially 

 after wounds produced by old rusty nails or splinters of wood 

 contaminated with earth or dust, and before the days of anti- 

 septic surgery frequently followed surgical operations. Carle and 

 Rattone, in 1884, were the first to prove that the disease could be 

 communicated from man to animals by inoculating twelve (12) 

 rabbits with pus, -of which eleven (11) died from Tetanus. In 

 the following year another observer found that mice and guinea- 

 pigs inoculated with garden earth invariably contracted tetanus, 

 and, moreover, in the pus which he found at the seat of inocula- 

 tion he always found a characteristic bacillus ; but it was not 

 until 1889 that the celebrated Japanese bacteriologist Kitasato 

 obtained pure cultures of this bacillus and worked out its life 

 history, and further proved that it belonged to the anaerobic 

 group of organisms — viz., those that live and reproduce their 

 species without free access to oxygen. A very remarkable feature 

 about the Tetanus organism is that spore formation takes place 

 at the end of the bacillus, which when complete has the appear- 

 ance of a drumstick. 



Kitasato, in the course of his experiments on the poisonous 

 properties of the Tetanus bacillus, succeeded in making animals 

 immune to Tetanus, and subsequently made the discovery that 

 the blood of immune animals will produce innnunity when 

 injected into other animals ; which resulted in a number of 

 eminent investigators taking up this important subject, and 

 thanks to the combined researches of Tizzoni, Cattani, Breiger, 

 Faber, Vallaird, Vincent, Kitasato, Roux, and Nocard, we have at 

 the present day an antitoxic serum whose therapeutic value and 

 as a preventive of Tetanus has been firmly established. It is, 

 however, only fair to point out that there have been a number of 

 reported failures when the antitoxic serum has been used as a 

 means of curing Tetanus : but it is equally fair to state that 

 almost without exception the treatment was unavoidably com- 

 menced when the tetanic symptoms had become extremely well 

 pronounced, at Avhich stage, according to our present knowledge, 

 there is very little hope of saving life. To veterinary practitioners 

 it is a well-known fact that the owner of a horse which is suffering 



