[111 cases of tetanus in 18 years. Report of experiences and general conclusions (author's transl)]

Abstract

Tetanus is subdivided into 3 degrees of severity according to the course. When death occurs, we differentiate those cases due to the disease itself (16) and those resulting from late complications or avoidable technical defects (12). 82 of our 111 patients-79 men and women-had been neither passively nor actively immunized and none of the supposedly actively immunized had been inoculated properly. The horse serum available in earlier years was considered unsuitable while an intravenous human serum recently produced by Messrs Immuno of Vienna justified greater expectations. Sedation or prolonged sleep with and without relaxation, tube feeding and parenteral feeding, prolonged intubation or trachectomy, duration of the life-threatening phase of the disease, breaking off treatment ("stealing out"), mobilization and finally, the question of expense, bear no relation to the extremely small cost of a confirmed triple inoculation. An urgent consequence of this is obligatory active immunization in early childhood if an earlier inoculation has not been done, but also at any time afterwards.