ON TETANUS. 
367 
appeared for awhile to be doing well: but, all at once, symptoms 
of hydrophobia came on : and they were too plain to be mistaken. 
The wound, which had been kept open, was examined, and some 
fungous granulations seemed to be sprouting from its bottom. 
The caustic was applied: they were removed ; and the general 
nervous irritability, either hydrophobia or something very closely 
resembling it, subsided, and the patient did well. I do not 
know of any case in our practice in which this has been the effect 
of applications to or operations on the original wound producing 
tetanus. The records of human medicine, however, contain 
such; and I would urge on you this attention to the primary 
evil, for in such a disease every thing is worth trying. 
The Argument pursued .—But I urge the trial of this on other 
grounds. There is the grand principle of counter-irritation. No 
two inflammations of great intensity usually exist at the same 
time. When one is set up, if I can establish another, and if in 
a neighbouring part so much the better—in proportion to the 
intensity of the new one, will the other subside. It will some¬ 
times be removed; it will generally be alleviated : but I must 
confess that, in a disease of the highest nervous excitation, 
this attention to the original wound—this attempt to set up a 
new action, and thus to remove or to lessen the violence of the 
constitutional affection, has so often failed, that I regard it as a 
very subordinate portion of the medical treatment of tetanus, yet 
by no means to be omitted altogether. 
Singular Case of Tetanus .—One case of tetanus is so singular 
that I cannot refrain from relating it. It is also connected with 
the mode of treatment of which I have now been speaking. A 
tumour appeared, without any assignable cause, on the point of 
the left shoulder of an old horse. It grew to an enormous size. 
It suppurated, but the fluid w^as deeply seated. It was opened, 
and a great quantity of pus escaped. With much difficulty, and 
after a month’s hard work at it, the tumour quite subsided, and 
the wound that had been made in it healed. On that very day 
tetanus commenced, and was rapidly established, and continued 
seventeen days until the horse was perfectly exhausted, and the 
case seemed to be lost: when a tumour began to appear on the 
point of the right shoulder, and grew as rapidly as the other had 
done. Instead of encouraging its growth as he should have done, 
the practitioner set to work to dispel it: nature had, however, 
accomplished her object; and as the tumour gradually disap¬ 
peared, the symptoms of tetanus remitted, and the horse reco¬ 
vered. A great deal of instruction may be derived from this case, 
and you will preserve it among your records. 
