266 VENOMS 
which arouses the suspicion of the owners of the animals. It is 
then necessary, as soon as possible, to inject subcutaneously in the 
right or left flank, or at the base of the neck, one or two doses 
of antivenomous serum, according to the gravity of the effects 
observed. 
The injection of the serum and the dressing of the wound should 
be performed as in the case of poisonous bites in human beings. 
Influence of the Doses of Antivenomous Serum injected, and of 
the Time that has elapsed since the Venomous Bite.—T have stated 
above that antivenomous serum possesses a preventive and curative 
power of such intensity, that it is capable in a few minutes of 
rendering animals into which it has been injected absolutely in- 
sensible to the most strongly neurotoxic venoms, such as those of 
Naja or Bungarus. On the other hand, I have established the 
fact that, the more sensitive are the animals to intoxication 
by venom, the greater is the quantity of antivenomous serum 
necessary to immunise them passively or to cure them. 
In experimenting upon mice, guinea-pigs, and rabbits, it is 
found that in order to preserve, let us say, a mouse of 25 grammes 
against inoculation with half a milligramme of venom, which is 
ten times the lethal dose for this little animal, it is necessary to 
give a preventive injection of 1 c.c. of serum; while half a cubic 
centimetre of the same serum is sufficient to render the dose of 
half a milligramme of venom innocuous, when venom and serum 
are mixed in vitro before being injected. 
In the case of the guinea-pig, it is hkewise found that the dose 
of serum to be injected preventively, in order to protect the 
animal from intoxication by ten times the lethal dose of venom, 
is about twice as much as the quantity of the same serum that 
it is sufficient to mix in vitro with venom, in order to render ten 
times the lethal dose of venom innocuous. 
If we inject into animals first venom, in doses calculated to 
kill the controls of the same weight in from two to three hours, 
and the serum fifteen minutes afterwards, it is found that the 
