164 
ROSCOE BELL. 
to the experiments of eminent bacteriologists upon the pathology of 
the malady, and, although the distinguished editor of the Journal , 
. in the first instalments, took pains to state that his whole associa¬ 
tion with the disease was against the theory of contagion, yet be" 
fore all the accumulated researches had been published, if he were 
not an absolute convert to the new order of facts, he, at least, oc¬ 
cupied a neutral position upon the subject. 
The late experiments of Dr. Shakespeare, of Philadelphia, 
detailed before the International Medical Congress, has brought 
the matter more prominently before the profession, while in 
Europe not only have the micro-pathological workers obtained 
positive evidence of its transmission through the medium of a 
virus, but the veterinary surgeons have been of even more prac¬ 
tical utility in the study of its character by means of the cultiva¬ 
tion and isolation of microbes. 
I wish only to give the readers of the Review a hurried re¬ 
sume of what has been accomplished within a short time past by 
collecting the substance of experiments and the conclusions of 
the experimentalists, with a hope that we may in this country 
add something to the great advance which has been made by 
those of our sister profession and our brothers in Europe. 
In 1784 Billroth stated his belief that tetanus was due to a 
toxic condition of the blood, but Arloing and others transferred 
blood from animals affected with the disease into healthy organ¬ 
isms and failed to produce a tetaniform condition. In 1882 
Rocard injected the cerebro-spinal fluid of affected animals de¬ 
stroyed with tetanus into untainted systems without obtaining 
any results. In 1884 Nicolaier first detected a bacillus which he 
declared caused tetanus, and he injected it subcutaneously into 
rabbits and produced the disease. Rosenbach arrived at the same 
conclusions from his experiments, though he could not cultivate 
the bacillus. It was at this time inferred that this germ pro¬ 
duced a chemical poison, which, acting upon the nervous system, 
caused tonic spasms, and Brieger (Deutsche Med. Wochenschift , 
1887) found a substance in bodies after death from tetanus 
which he called “ tetanin.” Davide Giordano ( Veterinary Jour¬ 
nal , 1887,) reached somewhat the same conclusions, but main¬ 
tained that the specific infecting agent exists only at the locality 
