Medicine: Tetanus Discovery

One of the most violent and fatal of infectious diseases is tetanus or lockjaw, caused by the tetanus bacillus which dwells in earth, manure, intestines of many animals, rusty nails and tools. The germs usually enter a dirty wound (sometimes only a pinprick) and incubate for more than a week, producing a poison hundreds of times more virulent than strychnine. A victim of tetanus first complains of stiff neck, then tight jaws, in a mild case muscular spasms in the region of his wound. Sometimes his mouth becomes drawn in a sardonic grin, and...

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