POISONS AND THEIR PREVENTION 187 



The importance of the production in situ of 

 this anti-venomous serum has been recently de- 

 monstrated by the experiments which have been 

 conducted in the Plague Research Laboratory, 

 Bombay, by Mr. Lamb and his colleagues, on 

 the keeping properties of such serums in India. 

 From the careful investigations which have been 

 made on this subject, these gentlemen state that 

 anti-venomous serum undergoes a progressive and 

 fairly rapid deterioration when stored in hot 

 climates, and that this deterioration is greater and 

 more rapid the higher the mean temperature to 

 which it is subjected. 



The protective potency of this horse-serum may 

 be gathered from the fact that it suffices to inject 

 a rabbit, for example, with a quantity amounting 

 to about one two-hundred-thousandth of its weight 

 to ensure the latter acquiring complete immunity 

 from a dose of venom capable of otherwise killing 

 it in twelve hours. 



The rapidity with which it acts is also extremely 

 remarkable. Thus, if a rabbit receive two cubic 

 centimetres (about fifty drops) of anti-venomous 

 serum in the marginal vein of one of its ears, it 

 will suffer with absolute impunity an injection of 

 venom into the marginal vein of the other ear 

 capable of killing it under ordinary circumstances 

 in a quarter of an hour. Its curative powers are 



