TETANUS — LOCKED JAW. 61 



reckoned among tlie means of cure — could one anywise be obtained 

 or contrived. Mr. Read, the ingenious inventor of the bivalvular 

 enema and stomach syringe, has been lately engaged in some 

 experiments towards the accomplishment of this desirable object 

 by means of steam, and it is my firm opinion that in the end success 

 will be attained, and our infirmaries will be furnished with apparatus 

 for the purpose. Some practitioners cover the loins and other parts 

 of the body with fresh-flayed sheep-skins. M. Lacoste, V.S. to 

 the depot at St. L6, has addressed to the Royal and Central Agri- 

 cultural Society of France a memoir on traumatic tetanus following 

 castration, wherein are recounted eight cases successfully treated 

 by repeated steam baths, along with the exhibition of opium to the 

 extent of Jiss in the course of twenty- four hours, aided by narcotic 

 injections (Veterinarian for 1837). 



Of the Cold Bath 1 saw the effects in early professional life, 

 on some tetanic horses that were brought to the Veterinary College 

 for treatment. The late Professor Coleman, at that time an enthu- 

 siastic advocate for cold as a remedy, — for, in fact, what now goes 

 by the name of hydropathy — turned tetanic patients out of their 

 warm stables into open yards without shelter, in the coldest 

 seasons of the year, and had them, when the atmospheric cold was 

 insufficient, kept continually suff^used with cold water; and, from 

 the sedative efficacy of the cold, some of them at first appeared 

 benefitted by the change ; in the end, however, the results were not 

 of a character to induce a continuance of so severe a mode of 

 treatment. Since these first experiments, Mr. Youatt has, in the 

 most decided manner, given the eff'ects of cold a fresh trial; but, 

 in his own words, though " some slight remission" followed, the 

 end was not marked by any ''decided good effect." In human 

 medicine, a plunge into a cold bath has been known to prove 

 almost immediately mortal to the poor sufferer. 



Specific .Medicines for tetanus we, in truth, possess none. 

 Among the many which at one time or another, in human or vete- 

 rinary medicine, have been lauded as such, we may mention, as 

 standing in the highest repute, opium, mercury, camphor, digitalis, 

 hellebore, belladonna, hydrocyanic acid, hemlock, henbane, tobacco. 



