TETANUS. 237 
the strength by suitable food, is about all that can be recommended, aside from 
meeting exigencies or symptoms as they arise, as diarrhoea, convulsions, etc. 
The fact that the disease is contagious need not cause any uneasiness, be- 
cause the extent to which it is so is very slight; and if dogs are kept from imme- 
diate and prolonged contact with the sufferer they are not likely to become 
diseased through him. 
TETANUS. 
Tetanus is an acute disease of the nervous system characterized by continu- 
ous tonic spasm or rigidity of certain muscles, with paroxysms in which the 
spasms are more intense and violent. 
Attacks of this distressing malady may be general or partial, and when the 
latter, it is mostly confined to the neck and jaws; hence it is popularly termed 
lock-jaw. 
Tetanus is due to infection by a specific poison or germ, known as the tetanus 
bacillus. This is always introduced through a wound or break in the skin or 
mucous membrane, where it generates a poison which gives rise to the character- 
istic symptoms. 
The wound through which the germ enters is in some cases so trifling that it 
may have healed completely before the symptoms of the disease have developed. 
That wounds contracted in a certain manner are far more liable to be fol- 
lowed by tetanus than others is a fact long recognized. For example, those that 
are small but deep, and produced by rusty nails or splinters of old or dirty wood, 
or wounds of the foot or hand into which dirt or filth has penetrated deeply, 
have been considered specially dangerous because of their tendency to cause 
lock-jaw. 
It seems that it is in the shallow wounds that the germ finds the conditions 
least favorable for its work ; and this is explainable when the fact is considered 
that the poison of the disease is quickly destroyed by the sunlight. 
Accepting the real cause to be a germ, exposure to cold, intestinal disturb- 
ances, and other debilitating conditions to which tetanus was once believed 
directly due, must be held as predisposing influences merely. 
This disease sometimes occurs after whelping, and is then called puerperal 
tetanus. It is exceedingly rare, however, excepting in cases in which the 
whelping is premature in consequence of injuries inflicted on the abdomen, as 
by kicks, or at term when the pups are too large to be delivered naturally, and 
their removal can only be effected by considerable force. 
Tetanus also sometimes occurs in pups within a few days after birth, but 
only very rarely unless the whelping quarters are exceedingly filthy. 
The period commencing with the occurrence of the injury and wound and 
