Farm Topics.

Horowhenua Chronicle, 20 April 1910, Page 4

Farm Topics.

CAUSES OF LOCK-JAW.

Wrong ideas regarding lockjaw and its causes are still very prevalent anions stock-breeders. In dealing; with the topic in the "Australasian," "Bendolby " says that probably this form <;f ignorance now finds more frequent expression in re hitioii to the searing of lambs' tails than 111 any oil)or direction. Nor generations it was believed that the severing (<f certain muscles 011 the liumm hand set up this terrible affliction. Scientists eventually exploded this conviction by practically proving that 110 knife or implement which had not been in connection with the ground could lead to sue!) a result, that lockjaw was caused by a microbe in the ground, and that unless the microbe were picked up therefrom no cuts or wounds could ,of |themselv}:s pronwilce 'If ck jaw. Some very interesting evidence relating to the subject was tendered at an inquiry in -Melbourne some lew years back, when it was sought to connect the death of an electric wire repairer with the injury directly cauesd by a live wire. This man died from lockjaw, but it was satisfactorily proved in evidence that an open wound on his hand had been brought into contact with germ-ladon around upon which ho fell at the time of getting the electric shock. The man who blames the sen ring iron for directly promoting lockjaw in lambs is wrong. Xo properly treated iron can carry the germ; a. dirty knife can, and, equally so, a cold searing-iron. The floor of any old stockyard may contain, and constantly does contain, scores # of these microbes. They may get imto any wound, however occasioned, either by hot iron or cold steel; but neither the one nor the other, if not or clean, will of itself convey the disease. A scratch from barb-wire 011 the coronet ot a horso s leg hasomutimes resulted in lockjaw. L'or this reason, men have been known to condemn the use of barb-wire (iiiito as emphatically as some now condemn the searing-iron. He mischief lies, as above explained, in the ground, preferably m and about old yards and stables, where manure is or has been lying a,bout. Whore men can report heavy mortality among lambs after the tailing process, as some undoubtedly can, the remedy lies, not in discarding the use of tho searing-iron, but m changing the site of their yards. Whilst 011 this subject, it is as well to make mention of the damgerous habit of allowing children on stations to run about barefooted. A wound from a nail or cut from broken glass can easily pick up this microbe. Tho environment of almost any station homestead makes it. in tiiis respect, a remarkably risky playground for barefooted children fl— .1- 1' —