TETANUS. 295 



swamp is taken in a cocoanut shell, or some similar vessel, 

 and into this the arrow-head is plunged. It is then carefully 

 dried in the sun, after which the thread is removed, when 

 a roughened point covered with a film of dry mud and 

 dust is left. In this mud there are probably both septic 

 vibrios and tetanus bacilli, the former, however, are rapidly 

 killed by exposure to the sun, whilst the tetanus bacillus of 

 Nicolaier, which, as we have seen, developes a well-formed 

 spore at one extremity, may remain active for months and 

 even years, although, as the savages well know, the poison 

 gradually becomes more and more attenuated, until old 

 arrows are known to become entirely inoffensive, except as 

 mere mechanical weapons of warfare or hunting. 



Stanley, speaking of the hunting appliances and offensive 

 weapons of the pigmies whom he encountered during his 

 African wanderings, makes a similar interesting observation, 

 to the effect that these small specimens of humanity use arrows 

 so poisoned that the slightest scratch with one of them pro- 

 duced one of two things, tetanus (or convulsions), which is 

 evidently due to the action of a poison similar to that above 

 described, or death, accompanied by peculiar gangrenous 

 sloughs at the seat of the wound, which is very probably 

 associated, so far as we can see, with malignant oedema or 

 "black quarter," a condition that was also described by 

 Nicolaier as resulting from the inoculation of soil collected 

 from gardens and forests. These pigmies are described as 

 dwellers in the dense forests of that part of Central Africa 

 through which Stanley travelled. 



Literature. 



The following works may be consulted : 

 Arloing et L^on Tripier.— Arch, de Physiol. Normale et 



Path., t. III., p. 235, 1870. 

 Belfanti u Pescarolo.— Centralbl. f. Bakteriol. u. Parasi- 



tenk, Bd. v.. No. 20, p. 680, and No. 21, p. 710 ; Bd. 



VI., No. 10, p. 283, 1889. 

 BoNOME.— Fortschr. der Med., Bd. v.. No. 21., p. 690, 1887. 

 BossANO. — Comptes rendus, t. cvii., p. 1172, 1888; Re- 



cherches Experimentales sur I'Origine Microbienne du 



Tetanos, 1890. 

 Brieger.— Bericht. d. deutsch. Chem. Gesellsch., Bd. xix. 



