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REVIEW. 



« VENOMS, VENOMOUS ANIMALS AND ANTIVENOMOUS 

 SERUM THERAPEUTICS,"— BY A. CALMETTE, M. D. 



Translated prom the French by Mr. G. E, Austen. 



The English translation of Mr. Calmette's book on poisonous animals and 

 their venoms should be very acceptable to workers in India and the British 

 Colonies who are not familiar with the author's own language in which the 

 original work appeared about two years ago. For the work contains the 

 results of the labours of one who has devoted a great deal of time and trouble 

 to investigations on the problems included under the title. It is, therefore, 

 worthy of careful study and although we may disagree with some of the 

 opinions held and now put forward by Dr. Calmette, it is nevertheless a plea- 

 sure to have to deal with the writings of one who has really worked at his 

 subject and who has not merely taken his information from the work of 

 others. The volume will also be of interest to those who, although not 

 workers on the subject are desirous of acquainting themselves with it, as 

 Dr. Calmette has a very pleasant style of writing and the translator has not 

 detracted from it. 



Part I of the present volume is devoted to a general description of poison- 

 ous serpents, to their classification and to their physiological anatomy. The 

 numerous illustrations will aid the reader in a proper understanding of the 

 descriptions. The habits of snakes are then dealt with and the methods by 

 means of which they are captured and treated when in captivity are described 

 in detail. It ends with a complete catalogue of the different species of these 

 reptiles, accompanying which is a more or less detailed description of each 

 species arranged geographically. The classification is founded on the descrip- 

 tion and nomenclature of Boulenger and abundant use is made of the catalogue 

 of snakes issued by the British Natural History Museum. 



The illustrations in this part of the work are very interesting and add much 

 to the value of the text. 



Part II is taken up with a description of the chemical, physical and physio- 

 logical properties of the venoms of the different species of snakes and is very 

 unequal ; in some respects it is markedly deficient and inaccurate. Thus in 

 the chapter on the method of collecting tb.e poison we notice that Dr. 

 Calmette reproduces a table from one of his earlier writings in which 

 he sets down the amounts of dried venom which can be got from the 

 adult cobra. The largest quantity which he was able to obtain was 48 

 milligrammes, a quantity about ten times less than has been got by workers 

 in India. The importance of this point will be apparent when we come 

 to the part which deals with the serum therapeutics of snake bite. The 

 physiological actions of venoms are not dealt with in a manner worthy 

 of a book of the size and importance of the present volume. There Ls a 



