Latin America 261 



Director of the Gorgas Memorial Laboratory in Panama, 

 has for years been interested in a snake census, to find out 

 the relative abundance and the distribution of the species 

 dangerous to man. He had collected thousands of heads, 

 which have been identified, and the information has been 

 useful in determining the procedure connected with the 

 preparation of antivenin. 



The procedure is to immunize horses from which the 

 anti-venomous serum is to be prepared with poison taken 

 from the most abundant dangerous species in any given 

 locality. Following the methods used in Brazil, the snakes 

 are captured and kept in a pen and milked regularly of 

 their venom, which quickly dries into crystal form. This, 

 diluted, is then injected, first in infinitesimally small doses, 

 into strong, healthy horses. The dosage is gradually in- 

 creased until the horse receives without injury amounts of 

 venom which would normally be fatal to perhaps a hun- 

 dred horses. Their tolerance builds up rapidly. 



The United Fruit Company, operating in those parts 

 of Central America where poisonous snakes are abundant, 

 had always been apprehensive that some of their best field 

 men might be bitten and lost. There were other demands 

 for serum in the Canal Zone, in the Army, and elsewhere. 

 When Dr. Afranio do Amaral had finished the work for 

 his Doctor's degree here he generously consented to help 

 organize an Antivenin Institute, and we set up a field sta- 

 tion at the Experiment Station belonging to the United 

 Fruit at Lancetilla, Honduras. A commercial organization 

 in Pennsylvania arranged to produce the antivenin if we 

 could supply the venom. 



Wilson Popenoe and Dorothy, his wife, were enthusi- 



