V 



TETANUS 



T3EF0RE bacteriology, the cause of tetanus 

 4-* (lock-jaw) was unknown, and men were free 

 to imagine that it was due to inflammation travel- 

 ling up an injured nerve to the central nervous 

 system. This false and mischievous theory was 

 abolished by the experimental work of Sternberg 

 (1880), Carle and Rattone (1884), and Nicolaier 

 (1884), who proved, once and for all, that the 

 disease is an infection by a specific flagellate 

 organism. Their work was of the utmost diffi- 

 culty, for many reasons. First, because tetanus, 

 in some tropical countries, is so common that 

 it may fairly be called endemic ; and many of 

 these tropical cases, there being no record of any 

 external infection, had been taken as evidence 

 that the disease can occur "of itself." Of this fre- 

 quency of tetanus in tropical countries, Dr Patrick 

 Manson, in his book on Tropical Diseases (1898), 

 says : — 



" Tetanus is an exceedingly common disease in 

 some tropical countries. In Western Africa, for 



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