Word: tetanus
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...against a bridge abutment while riding a freight train. The arm was not mangled, although its upper part was torn. Duty surgeon Dr. L. Henry Edmunds promptly spotted a chance for a historic operation. He started giving the boy two pints of blood, to combat shock, and antibiotics and tetanus shots to guard against infection. Then Dr. Ronald A. Malt, chief resident surgeon, gave the go-ahead order that called in all the specialists who would make the operation a major team effort...
Chancy Shots. In similar danger is the do-it-yourselfer who has gashed himself with a dirty hack saw. Since too few people ever have a tetanus booster, and fewer can remember when, his doctor often recommends a shot of antitoxin, designed for emergency use on nonvaccinated patients...
This, says Milwaukee's Dr. H. William Bardenwerper, is probably the chanciest thing the doctor could do. Of 2,000,000 tetanus antitoxin shots given annually in the U.S., an estimated 300,000 to 600,000 result in serum sickness, some in severe, possibly crippling serum neuritis. Antitoxin may cause 20 or more deaths a year...
...risk is nearly always needless, says Dr. Bardenwerper. Although tetanus (lockjaw) itself can be deadly, it can best be guarded against with a toxoid shot, which is made from killed tetanus bacteria and, unlike the antitoxin, contains no animal protein and virtually never causes serious reactions. The public, complains Dr. Bardenwerper, has had too little prodding from doctors on the importance of vaccination with tetanus toxoid, and still less on the need for booster shots every four or five years. Even if the patient has had no recent shots, there is generally no need for antitoxin: before tetanus can develop...
...view both by daylight and moonlight-well, the Taj Mahal, postponement or no, always lives up to its advance billing. For her part, the First Lady was packing trunkloads of clothes by Cassini, Chez Ninon and Tassell. She had got shots for cholera, smallpox, yellow fever, typhus, typhoid and tetanus-without getting sick. She had conscientiously boned up on the customs of India and Pakistan. Only one question remained: Would her health...