Treatment of tetanus neonatorum with muscle relaxants and intermittent positive-pressure ventilation.

Intermittent positive-pressure ventilation and muscle relaxants were first used in Cape Town in 1958 in an attempt to reduce the mortality from tetanus neonatorum, which was then over 90%. Problems of effective ventilation, of tracheostomy, and of infection in the neonate were gradually overcome so that between 1967 and 1972 the mortality in 186 cases was 21%. In a consecutive series of 97 cases the mortality was 10%.