TETANUS.A PRELIMINARY REPORT OF A STATISTICAL STUDY.

The object of these studies has been to demonstrate the incidence of tetanus in the United States and to present a brief review of all collectable cases, with a view to establishing our knowledge of the disease as it occurs in this country, as well as to adduce measures of prophylaxis and treatment. A study of the literature from 1850 to 1904, covering the reports of cases found in the "Index-Catalogue of the Library of the Surgeon-General" in Washington from 1850 to 1892, and the "Index Medicus" from 1892 to 1904, inclusive, or 949 cases, with a report of 252 original ones collected by us from direct correspondence with hundreds of observers all over the country, giving a total of 1,201 cases, affords convincing proof that every case of the disease is the result of the introduction of the tetanus bacillus through a lesion of the skin, however minute it