William Lehrmann, age 10, of Bissell Street contracted lockjaw through a large splinter in his foot in July of 1898. Although his father attempted to remove the splinter, when William's foot became swollen the doctor opened the foot and found a splinter about an inch and a half in length. Lockjaw had already set in and the boy's life was despaired of. The doctors ordered a serum that had been used in Germany to good effect, but the boy died before the serum could be obtained. (July 28, 1898)
I was curious about what this serum could be and did a little more research outside the Pantagraph. The serum was made from the blood of a horse that had contracted lock jaw and recovered according to the Pantagraph. An article in the St. Louis Medical Journal in September 1903 included an article on the Lille Institute and the production of lockjaw serum from horses. That article implied that the horse had to be inoculated for lockjaw, or infected with increasingly larger doses of lockjaw before a serum could be produced.
Horses would be infected with diphtheria as well, in order to obtain diphtheria serum. In 1901 a diphtheria serum was obtained from a horse for the purposes of treating children with diphtheria that led to tragic results. After the serum was extracted, it was found that the horse had lockjaw. The destruction of the serum had been ordered, but somehow the serum was used and thirteen children in the St. Louis area were killed by lockjaw after being treated for diphtheria with the serum.