80 NEW YORK ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY 
renovated and now serves as moth-proof storage for the winter 
equipment of uniforms of the Zoological Park rifle company, 
which is officially connected with and subject to the call of the 
New York Police Department, in case of grave emergencies. 
Owing to the serious shortage of coal, the Reptile House is 
being maintained at a lower winter temperature than ever be- 
fore. The collection is being very closely watched, and while 
there is a tendency of specimens to feed very sparingly we do 
not anticipate serious losses. The cost of feeding the reptiles 
always has been extremely low as compared with the other ani- 
mal buildings, but we have sought to economize, by all practic- 
able methods, even using waste from other buildings, such as 
banana skins and meat fragments. 
Karly in 1917, the Department of Reptiles received a ship- 
ment of tubes of anti-venomous serum for the treatment of snake 
bite. This serum was produced specifically for the treatment of 
bites of rattlesnakes, and its effect is much more efficacious than 
serums produced by immunization from mixed venoms and used 
for the bites of various types of poisonous snakes. 
The shipment of serum was received through the courtesy 
of Dr. Vital Brazil, Director of the Institute of Serum Therapy, 
at Butantan, Sao Paulo, Brazil. Dr. Brazil’s scientific achieve- 
ments in the treatment of snake-bite in his native country are 
now world renowned. 
Fifty tubes of the serum (anti-crotalico) were sent imme- 
diately to Col. H. Fisher, of the Medical Corps, U. S. Army, at 
Washington, D. C. Col. Fisher distributed these tubes among 
army units stationed in the South. These tubes were a gift to 
the government by the New York Zoological Society. 
It was our understanding with Dr. Brazil that in exchange 
for the serum we were to send him a consignment of poisonous 
snakes, from which he could extract venom for the immuniza- 
tion of additional animals. We obtained a large consignment of 
big rattlesnakes from Texas, and these reptiles were placed in 
strong shipping crates and shipped by the Lloyd-Brazilian Line 
during the early summer. 
We are maintaining a reserve supply of serum at the Park 
and occasionally have calls for it. Two cases of snake-bite were 
successfully treated in the city during the past summer from 
serum obtained from our stock. 
