150 METHOD OF PREVENTING DEATH FEOM SNAKE BITE, 



solution of permanganate of potash, and also by its local appli- 

 cation to an incision made over the bite, to destroy the lethal 

 action of cobra-poison previously injected, but their experiments 

 were unsuccessful, the permanganate appearing to be unable to 

 overtake the poison which had got the start of it. 



In 1881 Messrs. Gouty and Lacerda* made a number of 

 experiments upon the effect of permanganate of potash on 

 serpents' venom, and Lacerda found that permanganate of 

 potash not only destroyed the lethal action of the venom when 

 mixed with it in vitro, but also preserved life when a 1-per- 

 cent, solution of permanganate was injected into the tissues 

 close to the place where the venom had been previously injected, 

 and also when both venom and antidote were injected directly 

 into the vein. At the time of presenting his note to the 

 Academy of Science, in Paris, M. Lacerda was apparently 

 unaware of the previous experiments by Blyth, Brunton, and 

 Fayrer. In a later publication^ he discusses their experiments, 

 but claims for himself to have scientifically demonstrated per- 

 manganate of potash to be a precious antidote to serpent venom, 

 and to have brought it into common use, and thinks, therefore, 

 that the priority belongs to him ; but he was apparently 

 unaware that instructions for its use with the ligature had 

 many years before been promulgated by Fayrer in India. 



In the winter of 1881 a number of experiments were made 

 by Dr. Vincent Eichards, who found, like the previous experi- 

 menters, that cobra-poison was completely destroyed by per- 

 manganate of potash when mixed with it in vitro, so that 

 death did not follow the injection of the mixture either 

 hypodermically or into a vein. He found also that when cobra- 

 poison was injected into a dog, and the injection followed either 

 immediately or after an interval of four minutes by a hypo- 

 dermic injection into the same part of a solution of permanganate 

 of potash, no symptoms of cobra-poisoning resulted, but after 

 the development of symptoms of cobra-poisoning permanganate 

 of potash failed to have any effect, whether injected locally or 

 into a vein or both, 



* Couty and Lacerda, Comptes Eendus, vol. xcii, p. 465. 

 t Lacerda, Comjpies Rendus, vol. xciii, p. 466. 



