PREFACE. 



of innocent snakes, as has frequently been done, and thus prevent the 

 unnecessary expenditure of the public funds. 



The few brief suggestions concerning treatment, down to the end of 

 the 7th paragraph, if adopted by the non-professional persons brought 

 into contact with those who have been poisoned, might lead to the 

 saving of much human life. Thus there is some reason for supposing 

 that, if the ligatures and other means recommended were applied 

 instantly after a person has been bitten, that the absorption of the 

 poison would be prevented or materially lessened ; and that the surgeon 

 would be placed under favourable circumstances for combating the 

 dreadful enemy he has been summoned to oppose. Another point is 

 that, in all probability, the excisions that were formerly practised have 

 neither been extensive nor deep enough. My confrere, Dr. Wall, has, I 

 believe, undertaken some most interesting experiments on the point, with 

 a view to determine the area over which the poison is diffused from an 

 ordinary bite, in different regions of the body. I believe the result will 

 go to prove the absolute necessity for far more extensive excisions than 

 have hitherto been considered needful. The minor amputations of a toe 

 or a finger, and the large and deep excisions recommended in other 

 parts of the body, when promptly undertaken and executed are incom- 

 parably lesser evils than those which must be encountered if any dregs 

 of the snake poison are left behind to infect the blood, and eventually 

 to cause almost certain death. 



