Excerpt from Twenty-First Annual Report of the Provincial Board of Health of Ontario: Being for the Year 1902

Tetanus. This disease, though not one which ordinarily appears in epidemic form, nevertheless, though endemically present in most populous districts, has appeared in localized outbreaks, and, owing to its great fatality and painful symptoms which it exhibits, is one to which the attention of bacteriologists was early directed. So early as 1884, Carle and Cattani discovered virus in tetanus that could be inoculated from men to animals but it was not until 1889 that the. Tetanus bacillus was obtained in pure cultures by Kitasato, and als by Tizzoni and Cattani. As an anaerobe, which was spore-bearing. These spores are exceedingly resistant even to moist heat, but, fortunately, the germs do not develop in free air. Its presence, however, in the earth of gar dens and streets in various localities, made it' very desirable that investiga tions be carried on to discover if possible its antitoxin. Behring, Kitasato, Ehrlich and Tizzoni labored at this for some years, and by 1890 the fact of an immunity being established against the disease through the injection of a toxin of graduated strength, was confirmed. Its utility has hitherto been limited by the fact that the quantity of antitoxic serum required for a suc cessful result is at least two thousand times as great after the symptoms of tetanus have appeared, as compared with that required when an injection has been made antecedent to inoculation with the disease. This fact, asso ciated with the further fact that the tetanus germ goes on developing in an ordinary punctured wound without any sign of its presence till the onset of the spasms caused by it, makes any chance of treating the disease suc cessfully by the antitoxin relatively slight. The very complete knowledge which we now possess of the cause of tetanus, and the. Conditions under which it develops have, however. Enabled the surgeon when called upon to treat punctured wounds, to take such steps at the time the wound occurs as will preclude in large measure any danger of its development.

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