A Study of Treatment of Tetanus Based on a Review of 38 Cases from the Year 1932—1937

Tetanus as a disease was known to ancient medicine, including Hindu medicine. Hippocrates (460-370 B.C.), the father of modern medicine, described the clinical symptoms accurately. Charaka and Sushrutha (900 B.C.?) had also described this condition in Hindu medicine. The transmissibility of this disease to lower animals was demonstrated by Carle and Rattone in 1884. It was Nicolaier of Gottingen who in 1884 first demonstrated in lower animals ' tetanus' by inoculating earth into them. Kitasato in 1889 was the first to obtain the organism in pure culture. Prior to the Great War, only accidental wounds caused tetanus among the civil population and the mortality rate was high. The discovery of the anti-serum of tetanus by Kitasato and Behring has revolutionized the prophylactic treatment of this disease. The prophylactic treatment was put to the acid test in the war with remarkable diminution in the incidence of tetanus cases as a result