REVIEW. 211 



tendency throughout to convey the idea that these actions are very much 

 simpler than they have been shown to be, and the work of such men as Brunton 

 and Fayrer, Messrs. Mitchell and Reichert, Martin, Lamb, Elliot, Kogers, Ellut, 

 and Fraser, which work forms the essential part of our knowledge as to how 

 the various venoms exercise their action on the animal organism is not even 

 mentioned. Finally, the author falls into a very serious error when he states 

 that the venom of no colubriue snake exerts a coagulating effect on the blood, 

 as the poisons of many of the Australian snakes, of the Indian Bungarus 

 faciatus, all of which belong to the colubridae, contain extraordinary active 

 fibrin ferments. Again the Australian snake, Caotechis i^seudechis, is wrongly 

 described as producing an anti-coagulatory action. 



Chapter X deals with the toxicity of the blood of venomous snakes and shows 

 that the blood is toxic for certain animals, but owes this property to substances 

 other than those contained in the venom. 



Chapters XI and XII give an account of the natural immunity of certain 

 animals with respect to snake venom and of snake charmers and their ways of 

 working. The illustrations of the Indian snake charmer with his fangless or 

 glaudless cobra will be familiar to most of us. 



The third part of the volume, perhaps the most important from the popular 

 standpoint, deals with the serum therapeutics of snake bite and against many 

 statements and practical instructions contained therein we would enter a most 

 strong protest. 



The history of the discovery of anti-venomous serum is briefly narrated so 

 that the reader has no difficulty in seeing the part which Dr. Calmette took 

 in thi? most important work. It will be remembered that at the time a 

 certain amount of controversy took place with regard to priority as claimed by 

 Dr. Calmette and by Sir Thomas Fraser of Edinburgh, There is no doubt 

 that the credit of first establishing the fact that antitoxins to venom were 

 formed in the serum of an animal, which could be used for therapeutic pur- 

 poses, is due to Calmette, although similar investigations with other venoms 

 were being carried tn more or less simultaneously by Phisalix and Fraser, 



The details of the process of immunising horses for the purpose of procuring 

 antivenine are fully described and the difficulties encountered in the couise 

 of immunisation are explained. Although the method is now somewhat 

 departed from in India, this description should form an excellent guide to any 

 workers in the same field. Next comes the most important and much disputed 

 question of specificity. Already before this Society in past yeara papers 

 have been read and published in the Journal on this very subject. These 

 communications have shown that Calmette's claims for the serum being 

 able to neutralise all venoms are not founded on true experimental data and 

 must be given up. 



In the present volume oiu' author has somewhat modified his position. He now 

 nolds that the venoms of snakes, no matter what their origin, contain only two 

 principal substances, a neurotoxine, acting on the nervous system, and a hamorr- 



