Ever step on a rusty nail? It was, in all likelihood, rapidly followed by your parents dragging you to the doctor鈥檚 office for a painful (but safe!) tetanus shot. The memory of my first tetanus shot is preceded by an exploring an abandoned barn and getting cut by a stray wire fence. If it had happened in my own home it wouldn鈥檛 have even deserved a band-aid, but the threat of rust sent us to the doctor's office.
But it turns out that injuries caused by rusty objects aren鈥檛 any worse than injuries caused by any other discarded object.
, or lockjaw, is a bacterial infection caused by , an extremely hardy rod-shaped bacterium found in animal digestive tracts and soil worldwide. Tetanus is fatal in about but causes muscle spasms, fever and trouble swallowing in all cases.
The reason we associate tetanus with rust is because it鈥檚 often found in soil that鈥檚 rich in organic material like manure or dead leaves. Old houses, cars or other discarded items left in nature for long enough will rust (if they鈥檙e metal) and collect bacteria like Clostridium tetani, but the relationship between rust and tetanus-causing bacteria is purely correlative, not causative. Humans can be exposed to Clostridium tetani in a variety of non-rusty ways, such as .
So if your skin is pierced from anything from your own kitchen knife to a rusty gnarled screw, or if you begin working on a farm, it's worth making sure that your tetanus shot is up to date. After all, (in Canada at least) it's free and lasts an entire decade.
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