48 TETANUS — LOCKED JAW. 



disorder we are commonly called to treat ; indeed, so prevalent 

 is this form of disease over the others, that, when a tetanic horse 

 is brought to us, he is, as a matter of course, supposed to have 

 a wound of some sort about him : very likely it Avill be found in 

 one of his feet ; if not there, it should be sought for elsewhere. 



The Causes, in the shape of injuries, of this form of the disorder, 

 are very various, sometimes very trifling. Mr. Karkeek, V.S., 

 Truro, met with a case which had originated in the skin under- 

 neath the eye simply having been broken by the lash of a 

 whip. The late Mr. John Field mentions one case in which all 

 that could be found to account for it was a saddle-gall ; and another, 

 where there existed only a wound in the neck. The most common 

 cause is a wound in the foot — a puncture from picking up a nail, 

 or from being fresh shod — which has gone on, unobserved, to fester. 

 A simple tread may produce it. Both docking and nicking have 

 been followed by tetanus. On one occasion it succeeded cauter- 

 ization of a bleeding jugular vein*. 



Tetanus has followed Strangles. — In a case extracted 

 into The Veterinarian for 1828, from M. Durand, V.S. to the 

 French Artillery, this occurred at a period of three weeks from the 

 first detection of the tumour, and a little less than one after perfect 

 maturation and discharge of the matter by lancing. A similar case 

 is narrated in the same Journal for 1835, by Mr. Karkeek, with 

 the important addition of the presence of stomach and intestinal 

 irritation. 



Tetanus has proved the Sequel of Castration. — D'Ar- 

 boval informs us, that at a remount depot for cavalry estabbshed at 

 Bee, (departement de I'Eure) twenty-four horses were castrated on 

 the same day, and afterwards were, four times a-day, made to take 

 a cold bath in water derived from an eminently cold spring : the 

 consequences were, that sixteen out of the twenty-four died of 

 tetanus between the tenth and fifteenth days. The Americans, 

 who use the actual cautery in the operation of castration, experi- 

 ence tetanus so frequently afterwards, that a gelding is worth double 

 the price of an entire horse. 



* The case, which is interesting in other respects, will be found, with 

 some excellent comments on it, in The Vktehinartan for 183'2. 



