294 BACTERIA. 



out in a most remarkable fashion the experimental proofs 

 that have been already adduced. A horse which, in the stable 

 and in the field, always collects a certain quantity of earth 

 on his skin and in his hoofs, may be easily inoculated ; he, 

 in turn, may readily inoculate a man or another animal by a 

 kick with the sharp iron of his dirty shoe. Gardeners, agri- 

 cultural labourers, and all who work with horses or in the 

 soil, bear on their hands a virus which only needs a bruise or 

 a cut, but especially the former, to allow of its setting up the 

 characteristic symptoms of tetanus. Soldiers, during a cam- 

 paign, when their garments and equipments are soiled from 

 contact with the ground during their camping and bivouack- 

 ing are always more liable to the disease than when they are 

 hurt accidentally during times of peace. It is also pointed out 

 that in warm countries where people are in the habit of sleep- 

 ing out in the open air and on the ground, tetanus is very 

 frequently met with as the result of comparatively slight 

 wounds, whilst amongst children during the years they 

 crawl on the ground, or play in gardens or in fields, 

 tetanus is always more common than in later life, when the 

 parts that come in contact with the ground are usually pro- 

 tected by shoes and gaiters. Many of these facts are well 

 known to savage tribes, whose powers of observation and 

 opportunities for experimentation are of a very high and 

 extended order, and we find that Dr. Ledantec, in an interest- 

 ing account of the poisonous arrows used by the inhabitants of 

 Santa Cruz, of the Solomon Isles, and of the New Hebrides, 

 ■ speaking of the deaths from this cause of Bishop Patteson 

 and Commodore Goodenough, with their companions, refers 

 to the fact that they were all attacked by tetanus, or lockjaw. 

 He gives a short description of these poisoned arrows. They 

 are about three feet in length ; the shaft is made of a reed, then 

 comes a middle portion composed of hard wood, and lastly a 

 point which is usually composed of a fragment of human bone, 

 which is carefully sharpened to a very fine point, and is so 

 fixed that it readily snaps off on the slightest shock. With a 

 sticky substance obtained from an incision made in the 

 bark of a tree, the point composed of the fragment of bone 

 is smeared. This fluid, on exposure to the air, becomes 

 thicker, and of a more viscid consistence. Thread is then 

 wound in a spiral direction round and round the sticky 

 point. A quantity of soil from the edge of a mangrove 



