TETANUS, OR LOCKED JAW. 149 



yet is hope. If the patient should recover it will be very slowly, and he will be 

 left sadly weak and a mere walking skeleton. 



On post-mortem examination the muscular fibre will exhibit sufficient proof 

 of the labour which has been exacted from it. The muscles will appear as if 

 they had been macerated their texture will be softened, and they will be torn 

 with the greatest ease. The lungs will, in the majority of cases, be highly 

 inflamed, for they have been labouring long and painfully, to furnish arterial 

 blood in sufficient quantity to support this great expenditure of animal power. 

 The stomach will contain patches of inflammation, but the intestines, in most 

 cases, will not exhibit mucli departure from the hue of health. The examina- 

 tion of the brain will be altogether unsatisfactory. There may be slight injection 

 of some of the membranes, but, in the majority of cases there will not be any 

 morbid change worthy of record. 



Tetanus is usually the result of the injury of some nervous fibre, and the effect 

 of that lesion propagated to the brain. The foot is the most frequent source or 

 focus of tetanic injury. It has been pricked in shoeing, or wounded by some- 

 thing on the road. The horse becomes lame the injury is carelessly treated, 

 or not treated at all the lameness, however, disappears, but the wound has 

 not healed. There is an unhealthiness about it, and at the expiration of eight 

 or ten days, tetanus appears. Some nervous fibre has been irritated or inflamed 

 by the accident, slight as it was. 



Docking and nicking, especially when the stump was seared too severely 

 in the former, or the bandage had not been loosened sufficiently early in the 

 latter, used to be frequent causes of tetanus. It is frequently connected with 

 castration, when the colt had not been properly prepared for the operation, or 

 the searing iron has been applied too severely, or the animal has been put to 

 work too soon after the operation, or exposed to unusual cold. The records of 

 veterinary proceedings contain accounts of tetanus following labour, brutally 

 exacted beyond the animal's natural strength, in the draught of heavy loads. 

 Horses that have been matched against time have too frequently died of tetanus 

 a little while afterwards. Sudden exposure to cold after being heated by 

 exercise has produced this dreadful state of nervous action, and especially if the 

 horse has stood in a partial draught, or cold water has been dripping on the loins. 



The treatment of tetanus is simple, and would be oftener successful if carried 

 to its full extent. The indication of cure is plain enough the system must be 

 tranquillized. The grand agent in accomplishing this is the copious abstraction 

 of blood. There is not a more powerful sedative in cases of muscular spasm 

 than venesection. A double purpose is effected. The determination of blood to 

 the origins of the nerves, and by which they were enabled to secrete and to 

 pour out this torrent of nervous influence, is lessened. The supply of blood to 

 the muscular system is also diminished. The pabulum of the nervous and 

 muscular system the life of both of them the capability of acting in the 

 one, and of being acted upon by the other, is taken away. The proper course 

 to be pursued, whether theory or experience are consulted, is, on the first access 

 of tetanus, to bleed, and to bleed until the horse falters or falls. No attention 

 should be paid to any specific quantity of blood to be abstracted, but the animal 

 should bleed on until he drops, or the pulse evidently falters. Twenty pounds 

 have been taken before the object of the practitioner was accomplished, but he 

 never had occasion to repent of the course which he pursued. Inflammatory 

 action like this must be subdued by the promptest and most efficient means ; 

 and there is one unerring guide the pulse. While that remains firm tho 

 bleeding should continue. The practitioner is attacking the disease, and not in 

 the slightest degree hazarding the permanent strength of the patient. 



Next in order, and equal in importance, is physic. The profuse bleeding just 



