132 TETANUS. 



repeated until the effect is produced, the practitioner 

 next looks around him for some sedative medicine, in 

 order to allay the dreadful excitation of the nervous 

 system. Opium is thought to be the sheet-anchor here ; 

 and, in conjunction with camphor, it is supposed to be 

 almost uniformly beneficial. Two drachms of opium are 

 given as a first dose, with one drachm of camphor ; and 

 a drachm of opium, with half the quantity of camphor, 

 is afterwards given four times in the day. Such is the 

 plan perhaps most generally followed ; but by no means 

 attended with such results as will establish it to be 

 the only mode of treatment worthy pursuit. In fact, 

 the measures required to cure tetanus have yet to be 

 discovered. The most opposite methods have from 

 time to time succeeded, but all of them have more fre- 

 quently failed. In the course described as generally 

 practised, depletion carried to the utmost point is 

 depended upon ; but stimulants also have been pushed 

 to the extreme, and these likewise have appeared to 

 subdue the disease. Sudden shocks; repeated drench- 

 ings with cold water ; or pails of water thrown upon 

 the animal ; burying up to the neck in a dunghill ; 

 turning into a river ; and the injection of warm w r ater 

 into the veins, are each reported to have been success- 

 ful; but none of these plans have, upon being tested, 

 proved to possess much influence over the disorder. 



This being the fact, we inquire if the severe treat- 

 ment is absolutely necessary ? In tetanus the pulse 

 is not always accelerated ; and bleeding, therefore, is 

 not in every case indicated. The bowels are not in 

 every case constipated ; and purgatives are not always 

 required. The benefit of violent counter-irritation is 



