Gunpowder Wounds
Gunpowder is not antiseptically clean. It is very dirty because it contains so many of the deadly germs of lockjaw.
This germ has such a terrible effect upon the body that if not destroyed in time, it causes the jaws to lock so tightly together that they cannot be forced open. Gradually the patient starves to death and finally dies in terrible convulsions of pain.
Toy pistols, firecrackers, blank cartridges, being loaded with gunpowder are very dangerous playthings, and their use should be discouraged. Any physician or nurse will tell you that the hospitals have many deaths from tetanus (lockjaw) after the Fourth of July.