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We now have antitoxins, or vaccines, for blood-poisoning; for typhoid fever; for one of the forms of rheumatism; for boils; for the terrible cerebro-spinal meningitis, or "spotted fever"; and for tetanus, or lock-jaw. And every year there are one or two other diseases added to the list of those that have been conquered in this way.
Every time he is pricked by a thorn or gets a little earth in his finger-nail, he rushes into the house to bathe his hands in lysol and, for days afterwards, he keeps feeling his jaw to see whether it is stiffening with the first signs of tetanus. He lives in a condition of recurrent alarm. He gets more frights in a week than an ordinary traveller could get in a year.
#Local Tetanus.# This term is applied to a form of the disease in which the hypertonus and spasms are localised to the muscles in the vicinity of the wound. It usually occurs in patients who have had prophylactic injections of anti-tetanic serum, the toxins entering the blood being probably neutralised by the antibodies in circulation, while those passing along the motor nerves are unaffected.
For seven or eight years past we have been injecting this into every patient with tetanus that came under our observation, but so far with very limited benefit, even though the injections were made directly into the spinal cord, or brain substance. The problem puzzled us for years, until finally Cattani stumbled upon the explanation.
But by a coincidence the doctor came, gimlet-eyed. "Hysteria...." he said to Sister in the bunk. "Is no one going to reassure Gayner?" I wondered. And no one did. Isn't the fear of pain next brother to pain itself? Tetanus or the fear of tetanus a choice between two nightmares. Don't they admit that? So, forbidden to speak to him, I finished my splint till tea-time.
Other cranial nerves, particularly the oculomotor and the hypoglossal, may also be implicated. A remarkable feature of this condition is that although the muscles are irresponsive to ordinary physiological stimuli, they are thrown into spasm by the abnormal impulses of tetanus. Trismus. This term is used to denote a form of tetanic spasm limited to the muscles of mastication.
But being a foreigner, sir, do you know that you are like to find yourself in a great predicament for everybody says that M. Pons left everything to you?" Schmucke was not listening. He was sounding the dark depths of sorrow that border upon madness. There is such a thing as tetanus of the soul.
The rapidity with which a wound in a reasonably healthy individual, cleaned and dressed on modern surgical principles, will heal, is almost incredible, until it has actually been seen. The principal danger of garden-soil or street-dust in a wound is not so much from pus-germs, though these may be present, as from another "bug" the tetanus or lockjaw bacillus.
But being a foreigner, sir, do you know that you are like to find yourself in a great predicament for everybody says that M. Pons left everything to you?" Schmucke was not listening. He was sounding the dark depths of sorrow that border upon madness. There is such a thing as tetanus of the soul.
If earth or street dirt has entered the wound, the surface may with advantage be painted over with pure carbolic acid, as virulent organisms, such as those of tetanus or spreading gangrene, are liable to be present. Prophylactic injection of tetanus antitoxin may be indicated.
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