62 ANALYTIC SECT. VII. 
recollecting that their expansibility is also an effect 
of vitality, and not of mechanical elasticity. 
cxLu. Sir James Macgrigor states, that tetanus 
arises from every description of wounds, and at 
every period of their cure. If a wound be sup- 
purating at the time when the spasms commence, 
the discharge becomes serous and scanty; but 
when they disappear, the suppuration resumes its 
healthy properties; this circumstance induced 
Baron Larrey to employ means to restore the 
suppuration, which he alleges to have sometimes 
cured the spasms, 
cxLul. A slight scratch or puncture on any 
part of the body, seems very inadequate to throw 
the muscles into tetanic spasm; but if the sub- 
ject be examined by severe induction, it will be 
seen to correspond in a great measure with the 
general laws of sympathy between the different 
remote parts of the nervous system. From the 
intimate connexion of all the nerves with each 
other, many local affections have a tendency to 
operate upon organs situated at a distance from 
the diseased part; thus slight incised wounds 
sometimes bring on syncope, not from loss of 
blood, but from sympathy of the brain with the 
injured part; and convulsion of the muscles of 
expiration in sneezing, is an example of the same 
kind. That convulsion and coma, and even para- 
