4. It is not in cancerous sores only that Doctor Martin's powder has been found to do service. In sores of all kinds, and from a variety of causes, where they have been attended with fungous flesh or callous edges, I have used the doctor's powder with advantage.
I flatter myself that I shall be excused in giving this detail of a _quack_ medicine, when we reflect that it was from the inventions and temerity of quacks, that physicians have derived some of their most active and most useful medicines.
For a history of the different names and symptoms of this disease, I beg leave to refer the reader to practical books, particularly to Doctor Cullen's First Lines. My only design in this inquiry, is to deliver such a theory of the disease, as may lead to a new and successful use of old and common remedies for it.
All the remote and predisposing causes of the tetanus act by inducing preternatural debility, and irritability in the muscular parts of the body. In many cases, the remote causes act alone, but they more frequently require the co-operation of an exciting cause. I shall briefly enumerate, without discriminating them, or pointing out when they act singly, or when in conjunction with each other.
I. Wounds on different parts of the body are the most frequent causes of this disease. It was formerly supposed it was the effect only of a wound, which partially divided a tendon, or a nerve; but we now know it is often the consequence of læsions which affect the body in a superficial manner. The following is a list of such wounds and læsions as have been known to induce the disease:
1. Wounds in the soles of the feet, in the palms of the hands, and under the nails, by means of nails or splinters of wood.
5. The extraction of a tooth, and the insertion of new teeth.
9. The injury which is done to the feet by frost.
10. The injury which is sometimes done to one of the toes, by stumping it (as it is called) in walking.
13. Wearing a shoe so tight as to abrade the skin of one of the toes.
14. A wound, not more than an eighth part of an inch, upon the forehead.
15. The stroke of a whip upon the arm, which only broke the skin.
17. The sting of a wasp upon the glands penis.
19. Cutting the navel string in new-born infants.