nough so to make it the part of prudence
to have thoroughly asepticized and dressed any wound into which
considerable amounts of garden-soil, or street-dust, have been rubbed.
The reason why wounds of the feet and hands have had such a bad
reputation, both for festering and giving rise to lockjaw, is that it is
precisely in these situations that they are most likely to get
garden-soil, or stable manure, into them. The classic rusty nail does
not deserve the bad reputation as a wound-maker which it enjoys, its bad
odor being chiefly due to the fact already referred to, that injuries
inflicted by it are most apt to be in the palm of the hand, or in the
sole of the foot, and hence peculiarly liable to contamination by the
tetanus and other soil bacilli.

For some reason or other which we don't as yet thoroughly understand,
burns from a toy pistol in particular, and Fourth of July fireworks in
general, seem to be peculiarly liable to be followed by tetanus. The
fulminate used in the cap of a toy pistol, and the paper and explosives
of several of the brands of firecrackers, have been thoroughly examined
bacteriologically, but without finding any tetanus germs in them. So
many cases of lockjaw used to follow the Fourth of July celebrations a
few years ago, that Boards of Health became alarmed, and not only
forbade outright the sale of deadly toy pistols, but provided supplies
of the tetanus antitoxin at various depots throughout the cities, so
that all patriotic wounds of this description could have it dropped into
them when they were dressed. Since then, the lockjaw penalty which we
pay for our highly intelligent method of celebrating the Fourth, has
diminished considerably. It is probable that the mortality was chiefly
due to infection of the ugly, slow-healing, dirty little wounds with
city-dust, a large percentage of which, of course, is dried horse
manure. What with the tetanus bacillus and the swarms of flies which
breed chiefly in stable manure, and carry summer diseases, typhoid,
diphtheria, and tuberculosis in every direction, it will not be long
before the keeping of horses within city limits will be as strictly
forbidden as pigpens now are.

So definite is the connection between the tetanus bacilli and the soil,
that tetanus fields or lockjaw gardens are now recognized and listed by
the health authorities, on account of their having given rise to several
successive cases of the disease. Workers in such fields or g