388 
CLAUDE D. MORRIS. 
It has therefore been demonstrated beyond doubt that the 
ptomaines of the bacillus of tetanus cause tetanic convulsions. 
However, symptoms in many respects analogous to that of 
tetanus, can be produced with strychnia when given in toxic 
doses. If this and other drugs belonging to the same group 
can act upon the spinal cord in such a manner as to cause 
spasms and muscular rigidity, we should therefore expect that 
if the microbes of tetanus produced ptomaines in the tissues 
these might produce the same effect on the cord, and that the 
symptoms are produced by them and not by the direct action 
of the microbe. 
It is conceded by nearly all authorities that there are but 
few bacilli present in the blood of tetanic patients, and in many 
instances in which the disease was produced artificially the 
blood was after found sterile. On the other hand more mi¬ 
crobes have been found at the seat of primary infection, and 
in the tissues between it and the spinal cord than in the blood 
itself. Perhaps stronger proof than any as yet brought for¬ 
ward, to show that the direct cause of the disease is the pro¬ 
duct of the microbes and not the microbes themselves, is the 
experiments made by Brieger, who has succeeded in isolating 
four toxic substances from mixed cultures of the tetanus bacil¬ 
lus in sterilized emulsion of meat. 
The first, tetanin, when administered subcutaneously in 
mice, produced the characteristic symptoms of tetanus. The 
second, tetanotoxin, causes first tremors, followed by convul¬ 
sions and paralysis. Third, the muriate of toxin produces 
well-marked symptoms of tetanus, besides exciting the lachry¬ 
mal and salivary glands to increased functional activity. The 
last, spasmotoxin, also produces clonic and tonic spasms, which 
•prostrate the animal at once. 
As to the etiology of tetanus it has been clearly demon¬ 
strated beyond all doubt that the disease is due to microbic 
influences, whether ushered in as a traumatic idiopathic or 
artificially by infections of wound-secretions of tetanic patients, 
or by using mixed or pure cultures. The essential cause of 
the disease is the bacillus first discovered by Nicolaier in 
earth, and by Rosenbach in the wound-secretions of a tetanic- 
patient. 
