vi. INTRODUCTION TO FRENCH EDITION 
taking up a study which appeared to possess considerable 
interest on the morrow of the discoveries of E. Roux and 
Behring, with reference to the toxins of diphtheria and 
tetanus, and I could not allow the chance to escape. For 
the last fifteen years I have been occupied continuously 
with this subject, and I have published, or caused to be 
published by my students, in French, English, or German 
scientific journals, a fairly large number of memoirs either 
on venoms and the divers venomous animals, or on anti- 
venomous serum-therapeutics. The collation of these 
papers is now becoming a matter of some difficulty, and it 
appeared to me that the time had arrived for the production 
of a monograph, which may, I hope, be of some service to 
all who are engaged in biological research. 
Antivenomous serum-therapy, which my studies, sup- 
plemented by those of Phisalix and Bertrand, Fraser, 
George Lamb, F. Tidswell, McFarland, and Vital Brazil, 
have enabled me to establish upon scientific bases, has 
now entered into current medical practice. In each of the 
countries in which venomous bites represent an important 
cause of mortality in the case of human beings and domestic 
animals, special laboratories have been officially organised 
for the preparation of anti-venomous serum. All that 
remains to be done is to teach its use to those who are 
ignorant of it, especially to the indigenous inhabitants of 
tropical countries, where snakes are more especially formid- 
able and deadly. This book will not reach such people as 
these, but the medical men, naturalists, travellers, and 
explorers to whom it is addressed will know how to popu- 
larise and apply the information that it will give them. 
