Quick: Name a preventable disease that is infections but not communicable!

Did you all guess Tetanus? Good for you!

Clostridium tetani is a bug that lives in dirt, house dust, animal intestines, and human poop (green and otherwise). C. tetani gains entry into your body through breaks in the skin. The classic way to infect yourself is to step on a nail. But falling off your bike will suffice. The bug isn't the problem so much as is a toxin the bug produces, called tetanospasmin. This bad boy interferes with nerve transmission to your muscles and causes them to seize up in painful spasms.

Tetanus typically starts in the jaw and muscles of the face, quickly spreading to the arms and legs. Difficulty swallowing often follows. The slightist stimulation can trigger muscle spasms: the ringing of a cell phone, the flash of a digital camera, or someone in the room burping. Afflicted individuals dislocate their own shoulders and jaws from muscle spasms. Their intestines often seize up and their bladders fail to empty.

When muscles of the larynx become involved, death by asphyxiation often follows. In the modern era, death from Tetanus most often occurs via cardiac arrest. The face of the victim often remains frozen in a ghoulish sneer, known as the risus sardonicus.

The treatment of Tetanus is largely supportive. That's a fancy medical way of saying that doctors will try their best to keep a child with Tetanus alive with life-support systems. The case fatality rate is approximately 45%. Partial immunization appears to afford some protection. Absence of immunization affords less. In the 1940's there were approximately 500-600 cases per year in U.S. In 1999 there were 33 reported cases, mostly in older, undervaccinated individuals.

Tetanus is a preventable disease.

Death by Tetanus is painful and drawn-out. About the best thing that can be said for it is that when you go, you go with a smile on your face.