TETANUS — LOCKED JAW. 53 



opening and examining horses that have died of tetanus, have 

 come to the conclusion, that the disease consists in an inflamma- 

 tory irritation of the cerebro-spinal system, accompanied with soft- 

 ening of the spinal marrow ; and that the inferior columns and the 

 nerves taking their rise therefrom, which are the motor, are the 

 parts especially affected : at the same time, they cannot help ad- 

 mitting that similar morbid alterations are occasionally observable 

 in cases of paralysis ; consequently, the deduction still presses on 

 our minds, that a something, of whose nature and presence we are 

 in ignorance, exists as the peculiar or proximate cause of tetanus. 

 As for the discoloured and ecchymosed condition of the spasmed 

 muscles, which has been observed and noticed by the same inves- 

 tigators, that appears little or nothing more than might be expected 

 to follow the long and intensely contracted state of their fasciculi. 

 The exclusive presence of trismus affords no tenable argument 

 against the spinal marrow being regarded as the seat of central te- 

 tanus ; for the irritation, whatever it may be, is, as we have seen, 

 ''capable of taking a retrograde course along the marrow to the 

 brain." The irritation may, however, originate in lesion, or dis- 

 ease of the brain itself, of which the following case, sent to The 

 Veterinarian for 1834, by Mr. Skeavington, late V.S. to the 

 Bengal Horse Artillery, is beautifully illustrative: — 



A horse belonging to that corps was brought to Mr. Skeavington for "having 

 had his head cut by running violently against a cross-bar which is in the 

 cavalry stables at the head," occasioning a wound, apparently only of the skin, 

 that was sewn up, and promised to be well in a few days. Next morning the 

 horse's head felt extremely hot, and his mouth was dry, and pulse 50. He 

 had a gallon of blood taken away, and took aloes 5ss, &c., and had his head 

 bathed with warm water On the 4th day, the sutures gave way, and the 

 wound gaped open, and looked healthy. On the 8th day the wound was 

 quite filled up. On the morning of the 22d day, the horse "appeared to move 

 rather stiff;" and Mr. S. found the jaw protrude more than usual, the muscles 

 of the neck stiff and rigid, which symptoms led Mr. S. to believe " that teta- 

 nus was a near neighbour." 23d day. — The horse cannot separate his jaws — 

 cannot eat. Mr. S. had him cast, and made two oblique incisions, laying open 

 the apparently healed wound, which disclosed a fracture of the cranium on the 

 parietal suture, and a piece of splintered bone, which was removed, and the 

 wound afterwards sewn up. 24th day. — Worse. 25th day. — Cathartic medi- 

 cine operating : much relieved. 27th day. — Better : ate a little grass and 



