13 
E. Kose® 1870, described a particular form of tetanus following 
wounds in the area of the twelfth cerebral nerve which he called 
^'^head tetanus” or “tetanus hydrophobicus.” 
An important milestone in the history of tetanus was passed when 
Strumpell,^ 1876, declared tetanus to be an infection. The first 
experiments to prove this view failed. 
Arloing and Tripier did not succeed in transferring the disease to 
dogs and rabbits by carrying over the blood and the pus from tetanus 
wounds. 
Billroth‘S and Schultz^ also obtained negative results with dogs. 
Carle and Rattone, 7 1884, were the first to obtain positive results in 
demonstrating the transmissibility of the disease. They injected a 
number of rabbits with the washings from the neighborhood of an 
acne pustule from which* the tetanus originated. The rabbits were 
injected either into the sciatic nerve or into the muscles of the back. 
After an incubation period of two to three days 11 of the 12 rabbits 
showed typical tetanic spasms. They also succeeded in carrying the 
infection from animal to animal. 
By injecting earth taken from different places into 140 mice, 
rabbits, guinea pigs, etc., in studying the microorganisms of soil 
(ground tetanus), Nicolaier, ^ 1884, produced symptoms of tetanus in 
69 of them and always found a slender rod in the pus. Therefore he 
concluded that there exists a bacillus that causes tetanus in deep 
wounds of mice, rabbits, and guinea pigs. In cultures Nicolaier was 
unable to separate this bacillus from the other microorganisms with 
which it was associated, but inoculation experiments with mixed 
cultures produced tetanus. 
The next year (1885) Nicolaier,^ working under Flfigge in the Got- 
tingen Hygienic Institute, made noteworthy advances upon the sub- 
ject. He showed that each injection into mice, guinea pigs, and 
rabbits caused a disease with tetanic spasms, while dogs were refrac- 
tory. Nicolaier saw in the pus of the wounds this slender bacillus, 
“ Nicolaier, Arthur: Zur Aetiologie des Kopftetanus (Rose). Virch. Arch., vol. 128, 
1892, p. 1-19. 
^Striimpell: Ueber die Ursachen der Erkraiikungen des Nervensystems. Arch. f. 
klin. Med., vol. 35, p. 14-15. 
cArloing and Tripier; Gaz. iiied. de Paris, 1870, p. 337. 
d Billroth: Allgemeiiie chirurgische Pathologie uiid Therapie. Berlin, 1882, p* 
504. 
^ Schultz: Ueber einer Kumulation von Tetanusfallen ini Stadtkrankenhause zu 
Rostock. Rostock, 1876, p. 13. 
/Carle and Rattone: Studio sulk enziologia del tetano (commimicazione preven- 
tiva). Giorn. dell’ R. Accad. di med. di Torino, Marzo, 1884. 
Nicolaier, Arthur; Ueber inf ectiosen Tetanus. Deut. med, Woch., vol. 10, 1884, 
p. 842-844. 
^Nicolaier, Arthur: Beitrage zur Aetiologie des Wundstarrkrampfes. Inaug. dis- 
serta., Gottingen, 1885. 
