194 



THE AMERICAN MUSEUM JOURNAL 



reptile house the wound was massaged and 

 repeatedly bathed with a permanganate solu- 

 tion, which is made up by dissolving potas- 

 sium permanganate crystals in water until 

 a deep wine color is produced. 



By courtesy Sturgis and Walton Company 

 A Hindu snake-charmer's outfit. — The rearing snakes 

 are specimens of the cobra de capello {IVaja tripudians) , 

 or spectacled cobra, whose poison attacks the nerve cen- 

 ters of a victim. This most sensational of poisonous 

 snakes swarms over India, causing fearful loss of human 

 life. The "hood" discloses a weird marking not unlike 

 a pair of spectacles. 



The reptile crawling from the basket is the tic polonga, 

 or chain viper (Vipera russelli), a common snake in 

 India, whose poison attacks the blood of the victim, 

 producing internal hsEmorrhagc 



About one and a half liours later the physi- 

 cian administered the serum produced by 

 Calmette. It was injected hypodermically 

 not near or into the wounds, but under the 



skin of the abdomen, where it gained ready 

 access to the general circulation and was 

 carried throughout the system. In a few 

 minutes the ligatures were removed and then 

 for the first time marked local swelling and 

 discoloration — the characteristic effects of 

 crotaline poisoning — set in. Unfortunately 

 the serum which was in crystaUine form, 

 took so very long in dissolving in the cold 

 water (and warm water must not be used as 

 it coagulates the serum) that matters began 

 to take a serious turn. Mr. Toomey was 

 taken with violent chills, followed by nausea 

 and profuse perspiration. Immediately after 

 the injection of the first serum the physician 

 and Mr. Raymond L. Ditmars, curator of 

 reptiles in the New York Zoological Park, 

 began fluidifying the second tube of Cal- 

 mette's serum which they used on Mr. 

 Toomey at one o'clock. At intervals of 

 twenty minutes small doses of brandy were 

 given as a form of stimulant. It is well to 

 emphasize the fact that whiskey never did 

 and never will cure snake bite, and taken in 

 large quantities it not only produces no 

 beneficial effects but also is actually deleteri- 

 ous to the recovery of the patient. Those 

 people who claim to have been "cured" by 

 whiskey, recovered not because of it, but in 

 spite of it. At four o'clock in the afternoon 

 Mr. Toomey was removed to the German 

 Hospital and on the following morning was 

 almost in a state of coma. By this time the 

 arm had become alarmingly swollen, being 

 over twenty inches in circumference, while 

 the pectoral muscles were likewise swollen. 

 Also discoloration due to the internal haemor- 

 rhage had begun. 



At this point Mr. Ditmars attempted to 

 locate Dr. Brazil, Director of the Instituto 

 Serumtherapico, de Butantan in Sao Paulo, 

 Brazil, who chanced to be in this city and 

 about to sail for South America. Not until 

 late in the afternoon of this second day 

 could he be located, then his antidote, the 

 anti-crotaline serum, was administered. Mr. 

 Toomey's condition changed at once and he 

 began to imjirove rapidly. So effective was 

 the serum and so rapid the decrease in the 

 swelling that it was urmecessary to make the 

 customary drainage cuts, important hereto- 

 fore in cases of snake bite. By the thirtieth, 

 three days after the accident, the swelling had 

 decreased one half. In the afternoon of that 

 day a consultation was held by Dr. Brazil, a 

 r(>presentative of the staff of the German 



