276 Pi-oceedingn of tlie lioijal Socleti/ of Victoria. 



Mr. Fi-edrick Cliamljerlain and Mi-. Alfred Stilhvell were 

 elected Members, and Mr. A. Purdie, M.A., and Mr. W. H. 

 Steele, M.A., Associates. 



The PiiKSlDENT welcomed to the meeting Proi'essoi' 

 Haswell, of the University of Sydney, and President of tlip 

 Linnasan Society of New South Wales. 



The Librarian's re|)ort showed that 1)8 new volumes had 

 been added to the Library. 



Dr. Barrett read a papei- on "Snake-bite." 



In reply to Mr. Ellery, Dr. Barrett paid that snake-bite 

 was usually not a dangerous affection in Victoria. The 

 natural remedy for a severe bite was the expulsion of the 

 poison by downward bandaging. He thought a great deal 

 was to be said in favour of strychnine. 



Mr. Elleuy instanced two cases of recovery from snake- 

 bite, but in one case the man was subject to epilepsy ever 

 afterwards. In the other case, injections of ammonia had 

 the effect of causing a cure. 



In reply to a question by Dr. Brett, as to the length of 

 time taken in the absorption of the poison, Dr. Barrett 

 said it was impossible to state how long it would take for 

 the poison to take effect if it were injected into the 

 sub-cutaneous tissue. If the poison were shot into the 

 vein, no bandaging would save the patient. 



Mr. Hogg considered that ammonia and strychnine were 

 not antidotes, strictly speaking, but merely had the effect 

 of making a patient recover from a comatose state. 



Mr. Fenton said that in Victoria in ten years there were 

 thirty-eight deaths from snake-bite, but a great many of 

 those were insignificant bites. Not more than about six of 

 those cases were over twenty years of age. The I'emainder 

 were all young children. In India there were 22,000 deaths 

 from snake-bite, and that would give about ninety ])er mean 

 of population. 



Dr. Jamieson said that no statistics wei'e kept of the 

 number of cases of snake-bite. His impression was, that 

 real cases of snake-bite were nmch less irequent than the 

 supposed cases, and the symptoms usually presented by 

 those su])j)osed to liax'e been bitten were not due to snak(^- 



