One morning I am helping to clear away the rubble from a demolished building. I step on a rusty nail sticking out of a plank of wood. The nail goes half-way through my right foot, and is quite painful.
Clostridium tetani is found in soil, and at least one in ten people infected with tetanus die as a result of the toxin produced by the bacterium, if not treated.
At the beginning of the First World War, the death rate for soldiers wounded and infected in the mud of those dreadful fields was about 80%. A year or so later the use of equine anti-tetanus serum reduced this mortality rate to about 15%. My nail provides a possible opportunity for this organism.
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