The Antitoxins 143 



entirely annulled the effect of the toxin (modified venom) 

 used in treating them. This serum was found to protect 

 rabbits and other animals against both modified and un- 

 modified cobra venom, and was used successfully in the 

 treatment of a number of human beings that had been bitten 

 by cobras. Calmette, however, erroneously concluded that 

 because in most venoms studied he was able to find a 

 larger or smaller proportion of the respiratory poison, it 

 constituted the essential element of the venom to be an- 

 tagonized. Arguing from this standpoint, he recommended 

 his antivenene in all cases of snake-bite, regardless of the 

 variety of serpent. C. J. Martin* and others showed that 

 Calmette was wrong, and that his antivenene was useless 

 in the treatment of the bites of the Australian serpents, 

 and my own experiments have shown it to be useless 

 in the treatment of the bites of the American snakes. In 

 the venoms of our snakes the rattlesnake, copper-head, 

 and moccasin the poison is essentially locally destructive 

 in action, the fatal influence upon the respiratory centers 

 being of secondary importance, fatalities from snake-bite 

 being rare in the United States. Although I made many 

 attempts to immunize horses against this locally destructive 

 substance, which has since been carefully studied by Flexner 

 and Noguchi, f I was unable to do so. Noguchi J and 

 Madsen and Noguchi, however, applied Ehrlich's principle 

 to the investigation, destroyed the toxophorous group of 

 the venom molecules, and succeeded in producing an anti- 

 serum useful in antagonizing the active principle hem- 

 orrhagin of the Crotalus venom. 



Antivenene is useful in the treatment of cobra invenoma- 

 tion, as Calmette has shown by cases treated in his own 

 laboratory. The serums of Noguchi and others are equally 

 useful in their respective invenomations, but the opportunity 

 for successfully employing antivenenes is very small. Few 

 persons are bitten in places and at times where the remedy 

 is at hand, and the effects of venom of all kinds are so rapid 

 that immediate treatment is required. In India and a few 

 other reptile infected countries, as well as in zoological 

 gardens where venomous serpents are kept, and in labora- 

 tories where the snakes are kept for experimental purposes, 



* "Intercolonial Medical Journal of Australia," 1897, n, p. 537. 

 t "Journal of Experimental Medicine," vi, p. 277, 1901-1905. 

 J Ibid., vin, p. 614, 1906. Ibid., ix, p. 18, 1907. 



