LOCKJAW IN WELLINGTON.

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 149, 18 March 1908, Page 2

LOCKJAW IN WELLINGTON.

A HORSE DIES. A valuable horse, worth at least £50, died rrom lockjaw in Wellington recently (reported tlie. inspector of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals yesterday). The ciiscaso was supposed to have gained an entry through a wound inflicted accidentally by a shovel handle.. This, said,the inspector, was only, the second case of lockjaw in horses-he ■had met with, m his experience'. l ■< < . - Lockjaw is caused* by a microbe: known as tetanus. It lurks usually ,in the surface, of the ground, and gets a hold upon animals or, human benigs through, the medium-'of -al scratch; or a cut, particularly on' the feet..- A - stray nail on the road, pick«l up by,a horse's toot, may , carry the, disease into the tender parts of the hoof, or a pin prick, or cut by glass sustained by a child may lead to similar disaster. The,disease is caused,'not by the cut itself, which may bevtrivial,'but by'the .poison which, the tetanus germs manufacture. Ihe germs establish thcmselvos in tho immediate neighbourhood 'of the wound, -and do riot travel through'.the body; but.the poison, they produce travels through the system: anu sets up the contractions of tho muscles ami tiie other familiar signs of, the/malady. , e ttl< ! germs of anthrax, the tetanus must have a long I,fe ,„ the soil when under favourable conditions. In the. case , under notice, it is fortunate that tho horse and not the man was 1 scratched, by, the shovel.The .inei-' dent shows that there is lockjaw contamina-. •iL "I -i i s of Wellington, and people .Mth children cannot, therefore, bo. too ful in protecting cuts-on their feet from cin- : tact .with dirt. .