Tetanus.

Dr. P. J. Stoffer claims to have had a successful experience during a long practice in the treatment of tetanus. An article on this subject from his pen is published in The Eclectic Review of New York. While he formerly used capsicum and lobelia externally and internally, he now uses a combination of the methods which I have published in this journal several times during the past two years. He now evacuates the bowels of the patient thoroughly, and to a six ounce mixture he adds two drams of specific gelsemium and two drams of echinacea. Of this he gives a teaspoonful every thirty, forty or fifty minutes. If the patient cannot sleep he gives a half dram of passiflora as often as needed. The wound is opened and thoroughly irrigated.

I think the doctor will certainly find cases in which he would get much better results if the doses were four, five or even six times as strong as those he gives here. I believe hypodermic injections of twenty drops each of gelsemium and of echinacea every two hours would be safer.

Ellingwood's Therapeutist, Vol. 2, 1908, was edited by Finley Ellingwood M.D.