ISO Proceedinrjs of the Royal Societi/ of Victoria. 



but to «liow the difficulty of being accurate in forming 

 conclusions respecting its value. 



These iacts are so well-known that I must apologise for 

 restating them. I have mentioned them in outline simply 

 as part of the argument. In fact, if the name of other 

 remedies used in the past be excised fiom old reports in the 

 Journal, and the word strychnia be substituted, the descrip- 

 tion would parallel the present accounts of the efficacy of 

 strychnia. 



If, then, a discoverer of a snake- bite antidote has to refer 

 to mortality tables as a proof of its success, he has a small 

 margin to work on. He is dealing with a disease which is 

 not usually intractable. 



The [)ublic reports of cases may be i-eferred to as evidence 

 of its value, but apart from preceding facts altogether, 1 

 would ask anyone who is inclined to attacli any value to 

 such statements to think for a moment what they mean. 

 Men, women, or children of diffi3rent physiological resistance 

 and vigour bitten, or supposed to be bitten, by snakes ot 

 different age, biological characters, and virus-producing 

 capacity, the jnmctures made into skins of ditferent thickness 

 and in different parts of the body — treatment of various 

 kinds adopted. Are there here not enough variables to 

 cause grave doubt as to the value of a new variable 

 introduced in the form of strychnia? Again, public reports 

 of cases have been held to prove such extraordinary theories 

 in medical history that one may be pardoned lor receiving 

 them with great caution. As stated, other remedies for 

 snake-bite have been similarly commended at the hands 

 of their demonstrators in the columns of the Australian 

 Medical Journal. 



'J'here is one method by which the value of strychnia as a 

 remedy may be settled, viz., by resort to experiments on 

 anim.ils on which the action of snake poison does not to all 

 appearances differ materially from that in the case of man. 

 From this, however, Dr. Mueller dissents, though he refers 

 to experiments made on animals in support of his theor3\ 



The evidence adduced serves to show that there is no 

 wai-rant for believing strychnia to be of any value as an 

 antidote foi- snake-bite ; but there is no warrant for asserting 

 that it is valueless. By the experimental method alone, can 

 the vexed question be settled. 



