A treatise on tetanus : being the essay for which the Jacksonian Prize, for the year 1834, was awarded, by the Royal College of Surgeons, in London / by Thomas Blizard Curling.

Date:
1836
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A treatise on tetanus : being the essay for which the Jacksonian Prize, for the year 1834, was awarded, by the Royal College of Surgeons, in London / by Thomas Blizard Curling. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    G fixed and prominent, the brows contracted, and the forehead wrinkled, giving to the countenance an expression of great distress and anxiety, and fie- quently a peculiar grin, called by the earlier liters risus sardonicus. The voice is sometimes altered, being harsh and disagreeable, and, in the violent paroxysms, the tongue, being forced between the teeth, frequently becomes severely lacerated and torn, rendering the mouth bloody, and adding very much to the frightful appearance of the countenance. The shoulders are drawn forwards, and the body, forced into different postures, according as one set of muscles is more strongly contracted than their antagonists, is sometimes, during the paroxysms, so violently thrown about as only to be protected from injury by the care of assistants. The pain at the prsGcordium increases, respiration is embarrassed and hurried, and the pulse becomes quick and irre- gular. As the disease advances, the highly painful and distressing paroxysms recur more frequently, being renewed every ten or fifteen minutes. They also become more violent and painful, and are in- duced by the most trivial circumstance, as opening the door, a draught of air, or the least attempt to move or swallow. An agonizing sense of suffo- cation is experienced, the face appears livid, and in a state of violent convulsion life frequently termi- nates suddeidy; or sometimes all the sym])tonis are abated just ])revious to death, and the patient after-