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should at once be placed in a well-ventilated loose box, with plenty of straw 

 in it, and the diet should be restricted in amount, and of a light digestible 

 kind for the first few days. Recovery is generally the reward of judicious 

 treatment, good management, and careful attention. 



LOCK-JAW OR TETANUS. 



There is no disease to which the horse is subject which is so much and 

 so justly dreaded as is lock-jaw or tetanus, a malady to which the horse and 

 sheep, of our domesticated animals, are the most liable. 



Lock-jaw is a grave malady, characterised by continued spasms, 

 not only of the muscles which are under the control of the will, such as, for 

 example, those of the limbs, but to some extent also of the other muscles. 

 These spasms are painful, and from time to time they become more severe 

 and are then followed by intervals of repose. 



In most instances, lock-jaw arises in connection with some wound or 

 injury, though sometimes it occurs without any apparent cause whatever. 

 When traceable to an injury it is spoken of as traumatic. When it arises 

 without apparent cause it is termed idiopathic. We must remember that 

 the liability to traumatic tetanus in no way depends upon the severity of the 

 injury, as it not unfrequently follows very slight wounds. It is most likely to 

 follow either punctures or lacerated wounds. Although it has been said bv 

 some that lock-jaw is rarely due to wounds of the feet, this is, nevertheless, 

 most certainly an unwarrantable assertion ; for very many cases of tetanus 

 under our care have been due to injury of this most wonderfully constructed 

 mechanism. Wounds of the thighs, feet, quarters, and forearm are 

 especially liable to be followed by lock-jaw, and this is more particularly the 

 case when the nerves are injured. In a case in which a piece of straw was 

 embedded in one of the main nerves of the limb, the late Mr. D. Gresswell 

 found this structure to be in a highly congested condition for some distance 

 from the point of injury. Wounds, in parts which are the most tense, and 

 in structures bound together by unyielding tissues, are more frequently 

 followed by lock-jaw than injuries in the laxer tissues. Injuries of the joints 

 although frequently inducing a high state of fever, are nevertheless not often 

 followed by tetanus. The operations after which this disease most 

 commonly supervenes are docking and castration. In some instances the 

 insertion of setons has been followed by an attack. When tetanus succeeds 

 docking, this operation has in almost all instances been unskilfully or 

 unadvisedly performed under unfavourable conditions, as, for instance, when 

 the animal was in a weakened and debilitated condition, or when after the 

 operation the horse has been confined in damp or draughty stables, and has 

 probably been ill cared for in other respects also. The authors have, 

 moreover, noticed that when docking is performed by means of a blunt 

 instrument in an unskilful manner, tetanus is very liable to follow. When 

 docking has been judiciously performed, we have never known it followed 

 by tetanus. 



