PREFACE. 
of innocent snakes, as has frequently been done, and thus prevent the 
unnecessary expenditure of the public funds. 
The few brief suggestions concerning treatment, down to the end of 
the 7th paragraph, if adopted by the non-professional persons brought 
into contact with those who have been poisoned, might lead to the 
saving of much human life. Thus there is some reason for supposing 
that, if the ligatures and other means recommended were applied 
instantly after a person has been bitten, that the absorption of the 
poison would be prevented or materially lessened ; and that the surgeon 
would be placed under favourable circumstances for combating the 
dreadful enemy he has been summoned to oppose. Another point is 
that, in all probability, the excisions that were formerly practised have 
neither been extensive nor deep enough. My confrére, Dr. Wall, has, I 
believe, undertaken some most interesting experiments on the point, with 
a view to determine the area over which the poison is diffused from an 
ordinary bite, in different regions of the body. I believe the result will 
go to prove the absolute necessity for far more extensive excisions than 
have hitherto been considered needful. The minor amputations of a toe 
or a finger, and the large and deep excisions recommended in other 
parts of the body, when promptly undertaken and executed are incom- 
parably lesser evils than those which must be encountered if any dregs 
of the snake poison are left behind to infect the blood, and eventually 
to cause almost certain death. 
