266 VENOMS 



which arouses the suspicion of the owners of the animals. It is 

 then necessary, as soon as possible, to inject subcutaneously in the 

 right or left flank, or at the base of the neck, one or two doses 

 of antivenomous serum, according to the gravity of the effects 

 observed. 



The injection of the serum and the dressing of the wound should 

 be performed as in the case of poisonous bites in human beings. 



Influence of the Doses of Antivenomous Serum injected, and of 

 the Time that lias elapsed since the Veno^noiis Bite. — I have stated 

 above that antivenomous serum possesses a preventive and curative 

 power of such intensity, that it is capable in a few minutes of 

 rendering animals into which it has been injected absolutely in- 

 sensible to the most strongly neurotoxic venoms, such as those of 

 Naja or Bungarus. On the other hand, I have established the 

 fact that, the more sensitive are the animals to intoxication 

 by venom, the greater is the quantity of antivenomous serum 

 necessary to immunise them passively or to cure them. 



In experimenting upon mice, guinea-pigs, and rabbits, it is 

 found that in order to preserve, let us say, a mouse of 25 grammes 

 against inoculation with half a milligramme of venom, which is 

 ten times the lethal dose for this little animal, it is necessary to 

 give a preventive injection of 1 c.c. of serum ; while half a cubic 

 centimetre of the same serum is sufficient to render the dose of 

 half a milligramme of venom innocuous, when venom and serum 

 are mixed in vitro before being injected. 



In the case of the guinea-pig, it is likewise found that the dose 

 of serum to be injected preventively, in order to protect the 

 animal from intoxication by ten times the lethal dose of venom, 

 is about twice as much as the quantity of the same serum that 

 it is sufficient to mix i?i vitro with venom, in order to render ten 

 times the lethal dose of venom innocuous. 



If we inject into animals first venom, in doses calculated to 

 kill the controls of the same weight in from two to three hours, 

 and the serum fifteen 7ninutes afterwards, it is found that the 



