Tetanus as a Complication in Drug Inebriety

The medical literature discloses a great variety of interesting and unusual etiologic factors associated with the development of tetanus. Not a few writers have ascribed the implantation ofBacillus tetanito the hypodermic injection of various medicaments. The hypodermic use of gelatin, as a hemostatic agent, is reported to have given rise to tetanus in no small number of cases. The subcutaneous administration of diphtheria antitoxin is also said to have resulted in the development of tetanus. Tetanus in the drug addict, however, is of extreme rarity, if one may judge from the paucity of reported cases. The first reference that appears in the literature, to my knowledge, is an editorial note1in theLancetin December, 1876, in which the death from tetanus of a female addict, after using a rusty needle in the self-administration of morphin, is recorded. Melden,2in 1879, reported a postmortem examination, performed