CAPABLE OF COMMON AND EASY PRACTICAL APPLICATION. 151 



These results obtained both by Lacerda* and Eichards seemed 

 to give good hope that permanganate of potash might be used 

 to lessen the appalling fatalities from snake bite in India, but 

 it is evident that the hypodermic injection of a solution can 

 never be widely employed, because the hypodermic syringe is 

 expensive, it is liable to get out of order just at the times that 

 it is wanted, and the solution may become dried or spilt, or 

 may not be available. It is evident that the first requisite for 

 any antidote to snake poisoning is that it shall be always at 

 hand ; second, that it shall be easily applied ; and thirdly, that 

 it shall be cheap. 



About two years ago, one of us (Brunton) was asked, on 

 behalf of a young officer going out to India, to design an instru- 

 ment which might be used in case of snake bite. He did so 

 accordingly, and he has since had a similar one made for him 

 by Messrs. Arnold and Sons, which seems to combine the three 

 requisites just noted. It consists of a lancet-shaped blade 

 about half an inch long, long enough, in fact, to reach the 

 deepest point of a bite by the largest snake. He has had some 

 instruments made with a double edge, like an ordinary lancet, 

 and others with one edge sharp and the other edge blunt, so as 

 to press in the permanganate. The lancet is set in a wooden 

 handle about an inch and a half long, which is hollowed at the 

 other end so as to form a receptacle to hold the permanganate. 

 Two wooden caps are fitted over the ends of the instrument, one 

 to keep in the permanganate, and the other to protect the 

 lancet. Such an instrument, if turned out in large numbers, 

 could be sold at such a small price as to be within reach of even 

 the Indian labourer, and might be sold everywhere in the same 

 way as packets of quinine are at present. 



FiO-. 1. — Lancet for use in snake bite, showing the steel blade, the cap which 

 covers it, the hollow wooden handle for holding crystals of permanganate of 

 potash, and the cover which retains them. 



* Dr. J. B. de Lacerda, Rio de Janeiro, Lombaerts, etc., " O Veneno ophidico 

 e seus antidotos," 1881, p. 64. 



