ANTI-TOXIN FOE LOCKJAW.

Bay of Plenty Times, Volume XXI, Issue 3267, 20 May 1895, Page 3

ANTI-TOXIN FOE LOCKJAW.

r Another' distressing disease, tetanus or lockjaw, seems likely to be con- ? quered by the new anti-toxin treatment. It is claimed that lockjaw is the result of germs being introduced into a wound or opening in the skin. , Once in the wound, the germs of tetanus thrive wonderfully, and via a l few- days produce tbat awful; pondi-t 1 tion which results m the stiffening cf the muscles of the jaw, terrible > con- [ vulsions, and rigidity of the face, and ends in death. The facility with which anyone may contract this deadly , disease is a most alarming feature of the matter. A medical authority . says .— * The bacilli of tetanus cover all sections of the earth inhabited by man or beaet. The germs are in;* digencus, I might say, to the soil * where man or animals, live, ParticuJ larly in the stable myriads and myriads of these germs o£ disease have their being. The borße, more tban any oiber animal, is susceptible to tetanus, and this may be accounted for from the fact that the filth of the stable, is more conducive to the de- - velopment of the tetanus bacilli thaa any other condition.' Dr Paul Gibier, who thus describes the cause of the disease, is the diucoverer of its antitoxin. He is director of the New } York Pasteur Institute, and in a paper read before a medical society last month, be presented the interesting facts of a discovery in which he claimed that anti-toxin of tetanus is a positive preventive, if not an absolute remedy for lockjaw. He entered fet length into tbe details of the preparation of t anti-toxin, and cited numerous cases where the introduce tion of that fluid into the system both v prevented lockjaw and effected cures* Through a large microscope, which P. Gibier had previously set up on the platform, his hearers were enabled to peep at the Kacilh of tetanus with [ which he had charged the class.