TETANUS. 
573 
the jaws do not lock. Usually they do about the ninth day, 
remaining so from two to ten days, after which they gradu¬ 
ally regain their normal function. All the symptoms may 
gradually increase in severity for a period of ten days, and 
then gradually diminish under judicious treatment, or they 
may reach that stage when all the symptoms of acute tetanus 
become developed, and death take place the same as in the 
acute form. 
Axiologically the disease is now generally considered to 
be due to a specific micro-organism, a pin or brush-shaped 
bacillus which bears the name of ‘‘the germ of Nicolaier,” 
discovered by him in 1884. Doubt may still exist as to 
whether one single germ is invariably the actual cause of 
tetanus, and the exact nature of the disease cannot yet be 
considered as positive^ known; yet its infectious character 
is now conclusively settled. The results accomplished in the 
last few years have established beyond reasonable contradic¬ 
tion, not only the fact that the disease may be produced by 
inoculation into animals of pure cultures of the germ of 
tetanus, but that tetanus is clearly a microbic disease, with 
the germ of Nicolaier as its essential or primary cause. 
To Kitasato, a Japanese student in Dr. Koch’s laboratory, 
great credit is due, since he not only first isolated the germ, 
and with pure cultures produced the disease in animals, but 
also established the identity of the soil bacillus and that ob¬ 
tained from the wound of a horse suffering with the disease. 
One of the most interesting articles on tetanus is that of 
Dr. Theo. Kitt, of Munich. In one of his experiments a por¬ 
tion of the dried pus obtained from an abscess in the hoof of 
a horse which had died of tetanus, was ten times diluted with 
sterilized water, and two cubic centimetres (32 y 2 minims) in¬ 
jected subcutaneously into the neck of a horse. From Sep¬ 
tember 21 st to October 9th the horse remained apparently 
well, then symptoms of tetanus came on, the animal grew 
rapidly worse and died at midnight, October 10th. “The 
symptoms were those of tetanus in horses, notably the pecu¬ 
liar facial expression and the dilation of the nostrils.” 
As the horse was old and worn-out, and the disease ran 
