408 TETANUS. 



tare rind boistci-onsly wet Avcatlicr immediately .succeed tlie 

 shearing operation, it is no uncommon circumstance to find a 

 considerable number of animals, on the subsidence of the 

 storm, suffering from tetanus. Horses clipped in cold weather, 

 and incautiously exposed immediately afterwards, are also 

 sometimes similarly affected ; wdiile one of the most commonly 

 observed results of young animals being partly submerged in 

 wet ditches, and remaining struggling in such a situation until 

 completely exhausted, is an attack of tetanus. 



b.' Anatomical Characters. — Like many other diseases of the 

 nervous system, the evidences of tissue-change are in tetanus, 

 in the ma,jority of instances, neither characteristic enough nor 

 sufficiently uniform to enable us to speak positively regarding 

 them. The brain proper will generally be found free from 

 structural change. 



The spinal cord is frequently spoken of as showing evi- 

 dence, both in its meninges and intimate structure, of conges- 

 tion, alteration in colour, and other particular changes of the 

 intimate nervous elements ; but whether these latter are 

 primary or dependent on nutritive and vascular derangement 

 has not been determined. Much stress has been laid on the 

 appearance and condition often presented by the afferent 

 nerves of the part in which the injury has been sustained in 

 such cases as follow wounds. Distinct patches or spots of 

 inflammation, or congestion — neuritis — with, at the same situa- 

 tions, a perceptible increase in volume, and these conditions 

 continued along the course of the nerve to the spinal cord, 

 have occasionally been well made out in many carefully con- 

 ducted post-mortem examinations of both men and animals. 

 Congestion and inflammation of the ganglia of the sympathetic 

 nerve in different parts of its course, both in the trunk and 

 neck, mentioned by some as nearly always present, I am dis- 

 posed, both from the examinations I have attempted myself, 

 and from a perusal of the records of most careful examina- 

 tions made by others, to regard as extremely doubtful. 



Both from the negative and positive information afforded us 

 by such examinations, there seems sufficient evidence to satisfy 

 that the phenomena of the tetanic state do not depend on any- 

 thing approaching the inflammatory condition of cither the 

 ccrebrO'Spinal axis or the nerves. This conclusion is also 



