INFECTIOUS DISEASES AND MICROBES, ETC. 213 



spores of the tetanus bacilli. These spores after- 

 wards germinated (at 30 C.), and give rise to pure 

 cultivations of the tetanus bacillus. 



This microbe is localised at the actual point of 

 inoculation (i.e. in the pus and the walls of the 

 abscess), and is never present in the internal organs. 

 The ptomaine, which the tetanus bacillus gives rise 

 to, is manufactured at the site at which it is actually 

 introduced, and ' from this point it is absorbed into 

 the body, and is carried to the special tissues on 

 which it acts/ 



Professor L. Brieger 1 has succeeded in isolating 

 four ptomaines from pure cultivations of the tetanus 

 bacillus. This first is tetanine (C 13 H 30 N 2 4 ), which 

 produces tetanus in animals ; the second is tetano- 

 toxine (C 5 H n N), which produces tremor and 

 paralysis, followed by violent convulsions; the 

 third is spasmotoxine (formula unknown), which 

 produces tonic and clonic convulsions; and the 

 fourth ptomaine (which has not been named) causes 

 tetanus, accompanied with a flow of saliva and 

 tears. 2 Tetanine has also been extracted from the 

 limb of a patient who had died from tetanus. 

 Brieger looks upon the poisonous substance tetano- 

 toxine as a toxalbumin; but he may have over- 

 looked the possibility that this proteid may contain 

 a ptomaine closely bound to it, or in an isolated 

 condition within its molecules. 



1 Virchow's Archiv, vol. cxii. (1838), p. 549 ; vol. cxv. (1889), 

 p. 484 ; Berliner Klinische Wochenschrift, 1888 ; and Unter- 

 suchungen iiber Ptomaine, 1886, p. 89. 



2 These tetanic ptomaines do not occur in the urine of 

 patients suffering from tetanus. 



