488 
W. CARNES. 
to discard my views upon this subject, you will be compelled to 
ignore and exclude under such circumstances our able and com¬ 
petent physiologists indiscriminately, for we as students, have 
no right whatever to contradict the degree of temperature, or 
dictate in any case with perhaps depreciated and incorrect 
thermometers as are no doubt in use to-day, owing to their 
cheapness in value. Remember we are taught that no°‘F. will 
coagulate the albumen, after which life is no more. Then our 
increased temperatures, from a physiological standpoint, will 
not undergo the test. If it is possible that this germ prevails, 
and is the sole cause to induce tetanus idiopathic, surely in this 
instant it must be hereditary, and lies dormant to invade such 
injuries void of abrasions, thereby exercising their power of 
destruction at will. 
We frequently have tetanus, the result of a simple fracture ; 
then if these germs gain access to the system only through an 
abrasion, not by the respiratory or alimentary canal it must be 
hereditary, and lies dormant, or emphatically we do not have 
tetanus due to its direct influence. Humble your opinion and 
remember we could easily have death from excessive constitu¬ 
tional disturbance, or perhaps septycrema, in which we invari¬ 
ably find micro-organisms closely allied, and assuming com¬ 
paratively the same shape as those of the “bacillis tetni.” Then 
if tetanus is of a septic nature, and due to a micro-organism, it 
is absolutely the only disease on record which is not treated in 
some form or other antiseptically, with the view of destroying 
said germ, then we must take for granted that this little fellow 
exists, thrives and dies, and is generated likewise, as we have 
no other history of his life until after death, which might present 
its self in such a way, that one not exactly acquainted, would 
perhaps imagine these germs were distantly related to the ex¬ 
humed Egyptian mummy ; whereas it is necessary that both are 
to undergo practically the same process for their productions, 
identified by their history of teachings and recognized by their 
presence. Circumstantially I believe the latter are much more 
plentiful than these germs of tetanus. 
