What statement is most accurate in describing tetanus?

What statement is most accurate in describing tetanus?

a.
Inflammatory disease that causes extreme, localized muscle spasm.
b.
Disease affecting the salivary gland with resultant stiffness of the jaw.
c.
Acute infectious disease caused by an exotoxin produced by an anaerobic spore-forming, gram-positive bacillus.
d.
Acute infection that causes meningeal inflammation resulting in symptoms of generalized muscle spasm.

ANS: C

Tetanus results from an infection by the anaerobic spore-forming, gram-positive bacillusClostridium tetani. The organism forms two exotoxins that affect the central nervous system to produce the clinical manifestations of the disease. Tetanus is not an inflammatory process. The toxin acts at the neuromuscular junction to produce muscular stiffness and to lower the threshold for reflex excitability. It is usually a systemic disease. Initial symptoms are usually a progressive stiffness and tenderness of the muscles of the neck and jaw. The sustained contraction of the jaw-closing muscles provides the name lockjaw. Meningeal inflammation is not the cause of the muscle spasms.