SEROTHERAPY OF TETANUS. 
453 
[Written Specially for the American Veterinary Review.] 
SEROTHERAPY OF TETANUS. 
EXPERIMENTAL AND CLINICAL RESEARCHES—TREATMENT OF 
CONFIRMED TETANUS. 
By E. Nocard, Alfort, France. 
At the end of 1895 I presented the Academy with the first 
results obtained by me in the serotherapy of tetanus in horses. 
Used as a preventive, antitoxic serum had worked wonderfully ; 
applied to the treatment of the confirmed disease, it had almost 
always failed, even when the serum had been injected in large 
doses, and also as near as possible to the appearance of the first 
symptoms of the disease ; all acute cases had succumbed ; the 
recoveries that were observed were only cases of chronic 
tetanus, assuming from the start a slow progress, and which, 
without doubt, would have recovered without the use of the 
serum. 
It is because tetanus appears only several days after the 
absorption of the tetanic virus; giving that long incubation 
the absorbed toxin has had plenty of time to act upon the cells 
and produce the effects which belong to it, and from which 
proceed the tetanic manifestations; if, then, the dose of ab¬ 
sorbed toxin is sufficient to produce death, nothing will 
arrest the effects of the intoxication which has gradually taken 
place for several days ; patients treated even by massive doses of 
serum die just like those that have received no treatment. 
To support this interpretation, I reported experiments which 
seem to prove it. 
A few months ago, the Dent. Med. Woche^ischrift^ 1896, No. 
43, published a notice stating that the house of Meister Lucius 
and Bruning, from Hochst-on-the-Main, offered to physicians 
and veterinarians a serum, prepared by MM. Behring and 
Knorr, with which it was possible to cure confirmed tetanus, in 
man and in horses. This serum is delivered in the dry state ; 
the curative dose is 5 grammes ; to use it the dose of dry serum 
is dissolved into 45 grammes of sterilized water, heated to 40 
