734 LANCASHIRE VETERINARY MEDICAL ASSOCIATION. 
mature than I would otherwise have wished. I shall not waste the 
time of the meeting with a preface, nor do I intend to lengthen this 
paper with a minute description of the physiology and pathology of 
the disease, simply because I have nothing either new or interesting 
to offer you on these parts of my subject. I shall therefore content 
myself with hurriedly sketching its leading features, that I may the 
sooner get to that part which most of all others interests the 
veterinary surgeon, viz., the treatment. 
I am told by those learned in Greek that tetanus is derived from 
a word in that language which being interpreted means “ to stretch,” 
and may be described to be a disease in which the voluntary muscles 
are in a state of rigid, lasting contraction, with paroxysms of brief 
and painful spasms, alternating with irregular intervals of more or less 
relaxation. I believe this to be a disease of the true spinal system, 
and that the cerebruui in the horse is rarely if ever affected. 
Different names have been conferred upon the tetanic condition, 
according to the obvious effects of the spasms. Thus when it pro¬ 
duces a closure of the jaws, the affection has been denominated 
trismus, when a curvature of the body backwards, opisthotonus ; 
when forward and downwards, emprosthotonos; and when to one 
side, pleurosthotonos. 
These conditions are now treated as mere symptomatic diversities 
of the same disease. In the horse, trismus and opisthotonus are the 
most frequent; indeed, I never saw a case of the other varieties. 
Whatever form occurs, the disease may be either acute or chronic; 
the former a most formidable malady, seldom admitting of cure, 
tending rapidly to involve the whole frame, and unfortunately the 
more frequent in occurrence; the latter generally milder in all its 
phases, more inclined to be partial, and much more amenable to 
treatment. 
The disease is also said to be either traumatic or idiopathic, the 
former following wounds, bruises, or other injury, and usually acute ; 
the latter of spontaneous origin, without any external and assign¬ 
able cause, and usually more chronic. It has been thought by 
some that tetanus will assume the epidemic form, as there have 
been seasons in which it has so commonly supervened on injuries, 
that practitioners have dreaded its appearance on every occasion 
when a horse has been brought to them for scratches, or punctures, 
or wounds of any sort. My own experience of this disease does not 
bear out this idea. The most frequent form is that which is 
traumatic and acute, and the symptoms and character of this may 
be taken as typical of the disease in general. Various premonitory 
symptoms are given by some authors, such as a peculiar brightness 
of the eye, irritability, watchfulness, dislike to have the head 
touched, constipation of the bowels, and a disinclination to feed as 
well as usual. I think it not unlikely that such symptoms may 
exist, but I must confess that I have never been able to detect or 
even suspect the presence of tetanus until the indications were more 
definite in their character.- The disease may be said to be esta¬ 
blished when there is a soreness about the throat, stiffness in the 
