TREATMENT OF POISONOUS SNAKE-BITES 261 
solution), recommended by Kaufmann! for the bite of the common 
viper. 
No other effect is produced by a 1 per cent. solution of chloride 
of gold, or the alkaline hypochlorites, which I have shown to 
possess a strong oxidising action on the different venoms, even on 
those that are most rapidly diffusible, such as cobra-venom (see 
Chapter V.). They possess, however, owing to their slight causti- 
city, the advantage of not producing severe local disorders, and 
in this respect they are to be preferred. 
The chemical reagent most to be recommended is hypochlorite 
of lime, in a fresh solution of 2 grammes per cent., and containing 
about 90 c.c. of chlorine per 100 grammes. It immediately and 
surely destroys the venom by simple contact, and the chlorine gas 
that it gives off, owing to its great diffusibility, acts at a fairly long 
distance from the point of inoculation on the venom which is 
already beginning to be absorbed. 
Professor Halford, of Melbourne, advises the direct injection 
into the patient’s veins of from 10 to 20 drops of ammonia, diluted 
with an equal quantity of distilled water. This is a means of 
reviving nervous excitability in certain subjects at the commence- 
ment of intoxication; but torpor soon reappears, and, if the dose 
of venom inoculated is sufficient to cause death, a fatal ending takes 
place notwithstanding. Experimentally the effects of ammonia 
are nil. 
No better results are obtained by injections of strychnine, as 
recommended by Dr. Mueller, in Australia. Moreover, the 
statistics published by Raston Huxtable? positively condemn this 
therapeutic method. They show that, in 426 cases of snake-bite, 
out of 113 treated by strychnine 15 proved fatal, the ratio of 
mortality being 13°2 per cent., while the 313 cases not treated 
by strychnine only resulted in 13 deaths, or a mortality of 41 
per cent. 
1 4 Le venin de la vipére,” Paris, 1889. 
2 Transactions of the Third Intercolonial Congress, 1892, p. 152. 
