EDITORIAL- 
383 
In the selection of the committee of award we shall use every 
endeavor to secure the services of gentlemen of qualifications and 
repute such as will leave no room for question or dissatisfaction 
as to the soundness and disinterestedness, and consequent value, 
of any decision they may pronounce. 
We trust that our endeavor to encourage the habit of original 
research and to promote the literary tendencies of our colabor- 
ateurs, will be recognized and seconded in the same spirit in 
which it has originated, and that the result will be alike gratify¬ 
ing to ourselves, and in no small degree favorable to the cause of 
American veterinary progress, both in acquirement and in 
authorship. 
Infectious Origin of Tetanus. —The attention of our read¬ 
ers has been directed, in former numbers of the Review, to a 
new theory of the origin of tetanus, propounded by certain 
European writers, who suggest or affirm the parasitic and infec¬ 
tious nature of the disease. 
The idea attracted more or less notice by its novelty ; and 
notwithstanding the discouraging reception encountered by the 
advanced opinion, and the disparaging remarks of doubters and 
deniers, investigations were not lacking, and experiments were 
soon instituted for the purpose of testing the question and eluci¬ 
dating the true status of the new hypothesis. 
Among these, as we are informed, is Dr. Shakespear, of the 
Veterinary Department of the University of Pennsylvania, in 
Philadelphia, the first on this continent, we believe, who has been 
engaged in the practical demonstration of the subject, but with 
what result we are as yet unable to say, his investigations being- 
still in progress and as yet incomplete and unreported. 
Director Nocard, of Alfort, however, in a recent number of 
the Recueil de Medecine Veterinaire , reports a series of experi¬ 
ments made by him, which bear strongly in favor of the correct¬ 
ness of the alleged parasitic and infectious nature of lock-jaw. 
Numerous experiments have also been made and recorded by 
Arloing, Tripier, Nocard, Carle and Rattone, Rosenbach, Gior¬ 
dano and Bonome, in which the inoculation of the pus of tetanic 
patients has been followed by the appearance of the disease—the 
