Forms: α. 5–7 tetane, 7 tetan. β. 5 tethanus, 7–8 tetanos, -on, 7– -us. [L. tetanus (Pliny), a. Gr. τετανός muscular spasm, f. τείν-ειν to stretch. Formerly anglicized tetan(e.]
1. A disease characterized by tonic spasm and rigidity of some or all of the voluntary muscles, usually occasioned by a wound or other injury. (Cf. LOCKJAW.)
α. c. 1400. Lanfranc’s Cirurg., 104. If þat a man haue a crampe or ellis a tetane þat is a sijknes þat halt þe membre lich streit on boþe sidis.
c. 1608. Donne, Lett., in Gosse, Life (1899), I. 195. [My sickness] hath so much of a tetane, that it withdraws and pulls the mouth. Ibid. (a. 1614), Βιαθανατος (1644), 171. In Tetans, which are rigors … in the Muscles.
β. 1398. Trevisa, Barth. De P. R., VII. xii. (Bodl. MS.). This … Crampe … haþ þre manere kinde … þe þrid hatte Tethanus, and is whanne þe for þer senewes and þe hinder schrinkeþ.
1576. Newton, Lemnie’s Complex. (1633), 24. In the Apoplexie, Palsey, Tetanus, and many diseases moe.
1753. N. Torriano, Non-naturals, 66. In Epilepsies and Distractions, swooning Fits, Tetanus’s and Catalepsis.
1846. J. Baxter’s Libr. Pract. Agric. (ed. 4), I. 430. Tetanus is one of the most formidable and fatal diseases to which the horse is liable.
1846. Trench, Mirac., xi. (1862), 232. Paralysis with contraction of the joints … when united, as it much oftener is in the hot climates … than among us, with tetanus.
2. Physiol. A condition of prolonged contraction produced by rapidly repeated stimuli.
1877. Rosenthal, Muscles & Nerves, 34. Enduring contraction of this sort is called tetanus of the muscle to distinguish it from a series of distinct pulsations.
1877. Foster, Phys., III. v. § 1 (1878), 471. The changes in which may be compared to the changes in a motor nerve during tetanus.
3. attrib. and Comb., as tetanus antitoxin, bacillus, culture, poison; tetanus-afflicted, -like adjs.
1857. Dufferin, Lett. High Lat., vii. (ed. 3), 92. Our dinner went off merrily; the tetanus-afflicted salmon proved excellent.
1896. Allbutt’s Syst. Med., I. 237. The diphtheria and tetanus antitoxins act directly on the toxins. Ibid. (1899), VI. 541. In some cases … there are tetanus-like seizures.
1504. Brit. Med. Jrnl., No. 2280. 568. Tetanolysin, the hæmolytic substance of tetanus poison.
1908. J. Ritchie, in Carnegie Trust Rep., 25. The action of tetanus toxin on the central nervous system.
