SNAKE POISON r. STRYCHNINE. 33 



blood at first in the veins under the collar bones {Voia mbcldcia 

 sinistra and Vena anonijma). From there it goes to the right 

 heart, then to the lungs, and finally through the left heart to all 

 parts of the body where it begins to act, as I said, on the peri- 

 pheric ends of the motorial nerves. If you kill an animal by 

 viper poison, and just before death takes place apply the galvanic 

 battery to the central end of a motorial nerve, the muscle will 

 not answer at all to the irritation. Viper poison is a remedy for 

 all irritation of the central part of tke motorial nerves. I 

 injected viper poison 12 years ago under the skin of a boy 

 suffering from tetanus traumativeus (lockjaw), and slackened the 

 muscles of the whole body by it. Viper poison is a remedy 

 against strychnia, but strychnia is not a remedy against viper 

 poison ; it irritates the central part of the nerves, but the 

 irritation is not answered by the intramuscular parts of the 

 nerves affected by the snake poison. Dr. Bancroft's experiments 

 convinced me at once that the poison of our Australian snakes 

 is nearly related with the poison of the European vipers. During 

 the past month I obtained three fresh heads of the black snake 

 {Pseiuleclds porplnjriachus) from Pimpama Island. Having no 

 guinea pigs, I experimented with pigeons. The fresh poison 

 glands with the poison bags were cut into small pieces, and the 

 poison was extracted from them by pure water to make a solution 

 of two drachms out of the poison of one animal. About 25 

 drops of this tincture killed a pigeon in 15 minutes when injected 

 in the pectoralis major. Ten drops killed in two hours. If the 

 animal lived longer than two hours it always recovered, but 

 continued very weak and lazy for some days. As Dr. Bancroft 

 had made his experiments with large doses of strychnia to dis- 

 prove its power as an antidote for snake poison, I injected in some 

 cases large doses, and in some cases very small ones. The fortieth 

 part of a grain of strychnia [Str. hi/JrocJiloras) is the highest 

 amount which a pigeon can stand without getting convulsions. 

 I had no hopes, but still it might be possible, that a small and 

 not poisonous dose of strychnia would at least help the snake- 

 poisoned animal to live longer and so overcome, perhaps, the 

 effect of the smallest amount of snake poison, which generally 

 killed after two hours. I made many experiments, and I am 

 fully convinced now that neither large doses nor small quantities 



