TKTANUS — LOCKED JAW. 59 



Should the disease ensue on docking or nicking, fresh amputa- 

 tion of the tail, being a simple and readily performable operation, 

 had better at once be had recourse to ; it being borne in mind that 

 not much benefit is to be expected from it should the divided 

 stump assume the appearance described by Mr. Turner. Where 

 excision can be practised, it is preferable either to division of the 

 nerves or to the destruction of them by caustic, the grand object 

 being to extirpate or annihilate the whole of the injured nervous 

 structures. In a case of a sinus in the foot we cannot accomplish 

 excision, and therefore we must content ourselves with the use of 

 caustic; or we may employ the actual cautery, should the case seem 

 to warrant it. A very good application to the part afterwards, in 

 general, is an ample hot linseed-meal poultice. And though, from 

 such operations at an advanced stage of the disease, experience for- 

 bids us to expect any good result, still exists in our minds that 

 glimmering of hope that induces us in most cases to put them to the 

 test. Mr. A. Henderson witnessed " a case of tetanus, produced 

 from a wound in the foot, cured by neurotomy ;" but has known the 

 operation " in other cases fail :" and the same remark may be 

 made of one and all of the measures of traumatic treatment. 



Copious Blood-letting appears in the generality of cases to 

 have been practised with decided benefit. When symptoms of 

 fever are present, it is evidently indicated ; and when spasm is 

 unattended by any febrile action or irritation, it seems to be oro- 

 ductive of good as an antispasmodic. The extent to which it is to 

 be carried must be regulated by the state of the patient, and the 

 good or bad effects it appears to take on him : sometimes it may 

 prove advisable to repeat the evacuation as often as the animal 

 can bear it ; at other times, one or two plentiful abstractions may 

 be all that seem beneficial or bearable. 



Medicine, of whatever description it may be, as a general rule, 

 ought, in tetanic affections, on account of the torpid insusceptible 

 condition of the alimentary canal, to be exhibited in doses doubly 

 strong to what we should think of prescribing in any case of ordinary 

 disease ; and, moreover, it should be administered as early as possi- 

 ble after the disorder has manifested itself, lest the jaws get 



