• Ben Hur Horse Race@lemm.ee
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    4 months ago

    I’d say it is. Tetanus is bacterial. Its not caused by rust. The rusty nail method of transmission isn’t from a nail in a building like the post. Its from barns: stepping on an exposed nail in the past often happened in old rotting barns where animals would have been kept. The bacteria would be in animal feces, and would be in the dust/dirt of the barn, which would coat old exposed nails; go deep in mostly anerobic tissue and the bacteria would infect the bloodstream.

    A rusty nail in the city won’t have cow shit dust on it, so no tenanus.

    • Aqarius@lemmy.world
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      4 months ago

      Tetanus spores are in the dirt, everywhere, not just cow shit. The fear of rusty nails is because the wound needs to be relatively deep. It doesn’t grow well in open wounds.

    • PM_Your_Nudes_Please@lemmy.world
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      4 months ago

      Tetanus spores are pretty much everywhere, and can survive dormant for literal years. But it can’t survive in aerobic conditions after blooming, which happens when it comes into contact with blood. So surface cuts aren’t really an issue regardless of what caused it, because the bloomed spores will quickly die in contact with air.

      The association with rust is because rust is historically very good at harboring tetanus spores; This is regardless of whether or not an animal has shit nearby recently. It has a lot of jagged surface area for the spores to hide in, and punctures from rust tend to be accidental and deep enough to force the spores into the anaerobic tissue. Again, this can happen in seemingly shit-free dirt, because the spores can survive for so long that they’re basically present everywhere that has dirt.

    • ColeSloth
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      4 months ago

      My dad got it from inside a dirty house and cutting himself. You can get it from any wound from anything that has tetanus on it. Absolutely including a nail, rusty or otherwise.