INTRODUCTION TO FRENCH EDITION. 



In the month of October, 1891, during the rains, a village 

 in the vicinit}' of Bac-Lieu, in Lower Cochin-China, was 

 invaded by a swarm of poisonous snakes belonging to the 

 species known as Naja tripndians, or Cobra-di-Capello. 

 These creatures, which were forced by the deluge to enter 

 the native huts, bit four persons, who succumbed in a few 

 hours. An Annamese, a professional snake-charmer in the 

 district, succeeded in catching nineteen of these cobras and 

 shutting them up alive in a barrel. M. Seville, the admin- 

 istrator of the district, thereupon conceived the idea of 

 forwarding the snakes to the newly established Pasteur 

 Institute at Saigon, to which I had been appointed as 

 director. 



At this period our knowledge of the physiological action 

 of venoms was extremel}^ limited. A few of their properties 

 alone had been brought to light by the works of Weir 

 Mitchell and Reichard in America, of Wall and Armstrong 

 in India and England, of A. Gautier and Kaufmann in 

 France, and especially by Sir Joseph Fayrer's splendidly 

 illustrated volume (" The Thanatophidia of India "), pub- 

 lished in London in 1(S72. 



An excellent opportunity was thus afforded to me of 



