484 EASTERN COUNTIES VETERINARY MEDICAL ASSOCIATION. 
tetanus, I fear that it cannot be viewed in a light so favorable as 
this, for having regard to the nature of the disease, and the abso¬ 
lute necessity for perfect quietness, it will be easily understood 
that the probable excitement of the patient by the application 
of the rugs and the water will more than counterbalance any 
good effects that might follow upon the use of them, while 
Sir. Haycock and other gentlemen have proved by actual experi¬ 
ment, that the symptoms are neither mitigated nor removed 
thereby. 
The negative system is that which, rejecting all active measures, 
treatment, and medicine, relies exclusively on perfect quietude, 
darkness, and time to effect the cure. This plan has been prac¬ 
tised by Mr. Broad, of Bath, and also by his brother, for some 
years, with satisfactory results, the former gentleman having had 
four recoveries out of five patients. It is somewhat remarkable that 
of the first five cases the one that died was idiopathic, and the other 
four that recovered were all traumatic cases. Mr. Broad had pre¬ 
viously been in the habit of using belladonna, from the use of which 
several recoveries had resulted. He had also tried chloroform ; but 
it aggravated the symptoms, and made the case worse. He thought 
quietude w'as highly essential, and that no one should be permitted 
to see the patient. I am not aware that the experience of other 
veterinary surgeons confirms that of Mr. Broad, nor whether that 
gentleman continues the same method of treatment with the like 
result. 
There yet remains another method recommended for the treat¬ 
ment of tetanus, and probably the most valuable of all. I refer now 
to the use of hydrocyanic acid, as recommended by Mr. Lawson, of 
Manchester, in whose hands, during the last few years, a compara¬ 
tively large number of tetanic patients have been cured. I believe 
the recoveries that have been effected by that gentleman have been 
in the ratio of nearly 90 per cent., and that numbers of other vete¬ 
rinary surgeons W'ho have adopted Mr. Lawson’s method have been 
successful in an almost equal degree. In the essay to which I have 
previously referred, Mr. Lawson says, “In all the course of my ex¬ 
perience of this disease, up to the year 1857, I had only saved one 
case,” and adds that about this time he had the good fortune to 
meet with the late Mr. Poelt, V.S. to the 1st Dragoon Guards, by 
whom the merits of hydrocyanic acid as a therapeutic in tetanus 
w'as highly extolled, Mr. Poelt having cured six cases bv its use. 
It was this circumstance which induced Mr. Lawson to give the 
acid a trial. The result was that of eleven cases treated nine com¬ 
pletely recovered, and the remaining two were beyond hope when 
first seen. This w’as the experience of Mr. Law^son up to the time 
of reading his essay in 1864, since w'hich time numbers of cases have 
been treated by him, and also by other veterinary surgeons of emi¬ 
nence, including our esteemed friend Mr.*Thomas Greaves, with pre¬ 
cisely similar results. The latter gentleman, in a communication 
with wdiich he favoured me, states that he has cured five cases con¬ 
secutively by the acid, and that numbers of his professional friends 
