TETANUS ANTITOXIN 



161 



doses of antitoxin, and not a single case of tetanus 

 developed ; while during the same period, in the 

 same neighbourhoods, 259 cases of tetanus developed 

 in non-inoculated animals." {Med. JVezvs, 7th July 

 1900.) 



2. United States. — "Joseph MacFarland and 

 E. M. Ranck, in addition to a synopsis of the 

 method of manufacture of tetanus-antitoxin, give 

 some facts of interest and importance in regard to 

 its use for prophylaxis and treatment. The studies 

 were made upon several hundred horses used for 

 the production of various immunised serums in one 

 of the large laboratories of the United States. The 

 horses, because of the constant manipulations, fre- 

 quently became infected with tetanus, and in 1897 

 and 1898, when scrupulous cleanliness and disinfec- 

 tion were the only precautions employed to prevent 

 the disease, the death-rate varied from 8 to 10 per 

 cent. During 1899 nearly two hundred horses were 

 subjected to systematic immunisation with tetanus- 

 antitoxin ; and, in spite of otherwise similar condi- 

 tions, the death-rate descended to 1 per cent." 

 {Medical Annual, 1901.) 



The preventive use of the antitoxin has, of 

 course, a very limited range outside veterinary 

 surgery. Tetanus, thanks to the use of antiseptic 

 or aseptic methods, not only in hospital surgery but 

 also in amateur and domestic surgery, has become a 

 very rare disease, except in tropical countries. It is 

 no longer a "hospital disease" ; and, even in war, it 

 no longer has anything like the frequency that it 

 had, for instance, in the War of the Rebellion. A 

 student may now go all his time at a large hospital 

 without seeing more than one or two cases. But, 



L 



