108 
W. P. PHIPPS. 
near the wound ; only their ptomaines are absorbed into the 
blood and act similar to strychnine, but fail to respond to like 
treatment. 
Tetanus is usually produced from traumatisms that admit 
the bacilli and of the character to exclude the air from the 
depth of the wound, as a puncture of the foot, flap operation in 
myotomy of the tail, kicking, castration, etc. 
Horses and sheep are the most susceptible, dogs the nearest 
immune, probably on account of their adeptness in cleansing 
wounds. The disease may develop twelve days after the heal¬ 
ing of a wound. 
The idiopathic form of tetanus is that where there is no ap¬ 
parent abrasion, but may be from an internal lesion, as the 
virulent bacilli have been found in fresh faeces, and Jenning 
suggested that this form of the disease may be caused by or 
through the irritation produced by intestinal worms. 
When the bacilli develop rapidly and their products are 
rapidly absorbed, the disease is acute in form and mortality is 
high, and vice versa. 
As for the general symptoms of tetanus, they are so distinct 
to the practitioner that they leave not the shadow of a doubt 
in diagnoses. The prognoses in my limited experience have 
been grave ; with the results personifying the prognoses. 
This paper is written more in the hope to gain knowledge 
than in the expectation of imparting anything new ; except in 
the citing of three representative cases, taken from a dozen or 
more in my brief experience with this disease. 
Case No. i was a gray gelding that I had furnished pallia¬ 
tive treatment to through an attack of influenza, with gratify¬ 
ing results, and the doctor had been dispensed with and the 
patient turned into a paddock during the daytime to recruit. 
' One evening the owner noticed the horse lame in the near front, 
and research resulted in finding a penetrating nail, which was 
withdrawn with apparent relief. Four days later I was called 
and requested by the owner to cut the haw from over the sight, 
and thereby save the eye. He was much surprised when I ex- 
