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The Great War (1914-1918) Forum

Remembered Today:

ATN injection - what does ATN stand for?


A Lancashire Fusilier by Proxy

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The following is from a BMJ paper published in 1914:

 

Quote

Park and Wiliams (p.243) say:"It is the custom at many dispensaries in New York City and elsewhere to immunize all Fourth of July wounds by injecting 1000 [USA} units. None of these have ever developed tetanus." 

From this last statement we would conclude that 1,000 U.S.A. units is ample prophylactic dose, as it has always prevented tetanus, and that it is quite possible a smaller dose would answer the purpose.

Where there is plenty of serum at the disposal of the disposal of the surgeon there is no need to take thought about the size of the dose, and the ampoule dose of 1,000 to 1,500 units may be given with the knowledge that it is better to give too much than too little. But when, as may easily happen during war, there is only a limited amount of serum available, then the question of the smallest protective dose becomes important. This may be put down as about 500 U.S.A. units for a simple uncomplicated case, and as the amount of soiling of the wound and contusion of the tissues increases so should the amount of antitoxin be increased.

 

The authors then recommend:

Quote

At the first sign of actual tetanus 10,000 to 20,000 U.S.A. units should be given intravenously, and followed every twelve hours by further injections.

 

Note that the mortality rate was around 30-50% with this type of regimen - a reminder of what a terrible problem tetanus toxin posed. Westmann's account of seeing wounded German soldiers with tetanus in the first weeks of the war reinforces this.

 

Robert

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On 25/05/2020 at 23:31, RegHannay said:

Can anyone tell me what a Beatrice stove was please.

I don't pretend to have any specialist knowledge here, but having googled it I can see that there are - or have been - WW2 versions for sale on Ebay, from which it appears that it was a type of parrafin stove. There is also one referred to in this extract https://www.bbc.co.uk/history/ww2peopleswar/stories/59/a2062559.shtml (again WW2), there described as an oil stove. Would it have been named after Princess Beatrice, who was around in WW1, with three sons enlisted, and a Camp at Calais named after her?

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14 minutes ago, A Lancashire Fusilier by Proxy said:

I don't pretend to have any specialist knowledge here, but having googled it I can see that there are - or have been - WW2 versions for sale on Ebay, from which it appears that it was a type of parrafin stove. There is also one referred to in this extract https://www.bbc.co.uk/history/ww2peopleswar/stories/59/a2062559.shtml (again WW2), there described as an oil stove. Would it have been named after Princess Beatrice, who was around in WW1, with three sons enlisted, and a Camp at Calais named after her?

Thank you. I have since found info on the Beatrice stove. I believe they were first introduced around 1901 by by the Beatrice foundry, it came with either a double or single wick and top extension for larger pans, It had a heavy cast iron base/fuel tank and It could boil a kettle of water in ten minutes. Mid 1900's version had a steel fuel tank and was considerably small and lighter. They were also useful for heating a small room/area.

Dave

Edited by RegHannay
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  • 1 month later...

Found an example of an ATS entry on a field medical card.

TEW

14634379_Screenshot_20200715-175743_AdobeAcrobat.jpg.67ddac544cb5b7fbdeb80d892ee926ee.jpg

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As tetanus is a neurotoxin, could it be anti-tetanus neurotoxin?

 

 "The tetanus neurotoxin (TeNT) is a highly potent toxin produced by Clostridium tetani that inhibits neurotransmission of inhibitory interneurons, ..."

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On 15/07/2020 at 18:03, TEW said:

Found an example of an ATS entry on a field medical card.

Thanks, TEW, nice to see the initials written on an actual field medical card, though now I am wondering how it survived in view of our earlier discussion!

On 15/07/2020 at 19:40, PhilB said:

As tetanus is a neurotoxin, could it be anti-tetanus neurotoxin?

Thanks also PhilB, this may be a possibility unless my grandfather made a simple error, though ATS seems more common. May I ask where the quote you have cited comes from, and whether it is of WW1 vintage? I'm noting also that it seems to come with its own rather distinctive abbreviation, which may be difficult to square with the simple three letters "ATN".

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I think the card made it to the service record as he was a Canadian admitted to a Canadian hospital in France. It must have accompanied him to the UK. Better record keeping procedure I guess.

TEW

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13 hours ago, A Lancashire Fusilier by Proxy said:

 

Thanks also PhilB, this may be a possibility unless my grandfather made a simple error, though ATS seems more common. May I ask where the quote you have cited comes from, and whether it is of WW1 vintage? I'm noting also that it seems to come with its own rather distinctive abbreviation, which may be difficult to square with the simple three letters "ATN".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetanospasmin#:~:text=Tetanus toxin is an extremely,called spasmogenic toxin%2C or TeNT.

 

It seems that the WW1 anti-tetanus treatment was quite different to that of WW2. The use of the word neurotoxin did reach a peak during WW1.

 

https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?corpus=15&year_end=2008&smoothing=7&case_insensitive=on&content=neurotoxin&year_start=1800&direct_url=t4%3B%2Cneurotoxin%3B%2Cc0%3B%2Cs0%3B%3Bneurotoxin%3B%2Cc0%3B%3BNeurotoxin%3B%2Cc0

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9 hours ago, PhilB said:

The use of the word neurotoxin did reach a peak during WW1

Thanks PhilB; as you say, a definite peak of usage of the word in WW1. Hopefully if anyone who has read this thread comes across the acronym  ATN as an alternative to ATS they will post here - I'll keep following the thread just in case ...

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1 hour ago, A Lancashire Fusilier by Proxy said:

Thanks PhilB; as you say, a definite peak of usage of the word in WW1. Hopefully if anyone who has read this thread comes across the acronym  ATN as an alternative to ATS they will post here - I'll keep following the thread just in case ...

Good luck "T". Each medic named it differently,a fairly new treatment at the time, not given an official medical title.

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