Researches on tetanus. II, The toxin of the bacillus tetani is not transported to the central nervous system by any component of the peripheral nerve trunks / by John J. Abel[and others].

Date:: [1935?]

Credit: Researches on tetanus. II, The toxin of the bacillus tetani is not transported to the central nervous system by any component of the peripheral nerve trunks / by John J. Abel[and others]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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$Reprinted from BULLETIN oF THE JoHNS Hopkins HospiTau Vol. LVI, No. 2, pp. 84-114, February, 1935 RESEARCHES ON TETANUS Il. Tor Toxin OF THE BACILLUS TETANI IS Not TRANSPORTED TO THE CENTRAL NERVOUS SYSTEM BY ANY COMPONENT OF THE PERIPHERAL NERVE TRUNKS!” JOHN J. ABEL, E. A. EVANS, Jr., B. HAMPIL anp F, C. LEE From the Laboratory for Endocrine Research, the Department of Bacteriology of the School of Hygiene and Public Health, and the Department of Surgery of the Johns Hopkins University Submitted for publication December 7, 1934 In the years 1884 to 1890, as is well known, bacteriologists definitely established the infective nature of the fatal disease, tetanus, by isolat- ing the causative organism in pure culture. One ordinarily speaks of this organism as the bacillus tetani, but it is known to the specialist as clostridium tetani, one of the family of the bacillaceae of the general class of plant organisms known as Schizomycetes. That the disease may appear, this clostridium or its spores must be introduced beneath the skin. The history of tetanus shows that there are innumerable ways in which the organism may gain entrance into the body. Thus, it may occur during or after the application of blistering plasters, cupping, extraction of teeth, the application of ligatures to the umbil- ical cord and to wounds, after slight lesions of any part of the integu- ment, even of the cornea, stings and bites of insects, in the course of gangrene, after scratching acne pustules, after compound fractures and other extensive injuries such as gun-shot and knife wounds, and so 1 A grant from the Carnegie Corporation of New York has made it possible for the authors to carry on a series of investigations on tetanus. The senior author has given in an earlier communication a brief account of Professor Lee’s experiments on the transection and suture of sciatic nerves into which tetanus toxin was later injected, and also an abstract of our own determina- tions of the amount of toxin in the blood and lymph of sheep throughout the course of experimentally induced tetanus. The communication appeared in Science, 1934, vol. Ixxix, pp. 121-129, and will henceforth be called No. I of our series of papers on tetanus.$