234 VENOMS 



Nevertheless, accidents sometimes happen to them, and every year 

 a few of them succumh in pursuit of their calhng (see p. 870). 

 Still, it may be asserted that some of them really know how to 

 vaccinate themselves against venom, by making young Cobras bite 

 them from time to time. 



It is stated by E. C. Cotes, ^ formerly of the Calcutta Museum, 

 that the Indian snake-charmers do not extract the poison-fangs 

 from their snakes. Even though deprived of its fangs, the snake 

 would still be dangerous on account of its other teeth, the punc- 

 tures of which would provide another channel for the penetration 

 of the venom. 



Snake-charmers pretend that they owe their immunity to 

 graduated inoculations. This is not yet conclusively proved ; what 

 is better established is that they take the greatest care to avoid 

 being bitten, and that in so doing they display the most remarkable 

 skill. 



Even in France we are acquainted with professional viper- 

 catchers, who employ the method of graduated inoculations in 

 order to render themselves immune to the bites of indigenous 

 reptiles. One of these men, who lives near Arbois (Jura), takes 

 good care to get himself bitten, at least once a year, by a young 

 viper; when he forgets this precaution and happens to be bitten, 

 he always feels the effects much more severely. 



Eraser ^ (of Edinburgh) thinks that the repeated ingestion of 

 small quantities of venom may suffice to confer immunity, and he 

 mentions a certain number of experiments performed by him upon 

 white rats and kittens, from which it would appear that the in- 

 gestion of venom, continued for a long time, finally renders these 

 animals absolutely refractory to subcutaneous inoculation with 

 doses of the same venom several times greater than the lethal one. 

 He therefore concludes that this process of vaccination may prob- 

 ably be in use among snake-charmers. 



1 Maclnres Magazine, April, 1894. 

 ^ British Medical Journal, August 17, 1895. 



