1. By way of introduction, a brief sketch of the literature and history of tetany may not be inappropriate, since very few observations have been published or papers written in this country upon the disease in question.
The recognition of tetany (though Steinheim is credited by Stewart, of Montreal, as the first to give a true clinical description of tetany in 1830) dates from the memoirs of Dance, published in 1831 in the Archives Générales de Médecine, and entitled, "Observations on a Form of Intermittent Tetanus." The attention of the French physicians of this period having been directed to the new malady, various papers and memoirs were contributed by them from 1832 to 1855, elucidating its characteristic symptoms and conditions so thoroughly that it may be fairly conceded that to their labors is due all our present knowledge of this disorder. Several names were proposed to be given to this