CAPABLE OF COMMON AND EASY PRACTICAL APPLICATION. 153 



the Crotal'Hs horridus, the Colubrine snake tlie Bungarus 

 fasciatus, and one of the Hydrophid?e or Sea-snakes, namely, the 

 Bnhydrina hengalensis. In the case of each, ten or more lethal 

 doses were neutralised by very small quantities of permanganate 

 in solution, and in most of them 20 lethal doses were readily thus 

 rendered harmless. The only failure was in Experiment 7, in 

 which 32'2 milligrammes of Bungarus fasciatus venom was added 

 to 25 milligrammes of permanganate of potash in solution, and in 

 this case by far the greater part of the poison must have been 

 neutralised, for in previous experiments one-eighteenth part of 

 the venom per kilogramme, used in Experiment 7, killed a 

 pigeon in one hour. Further experiments showed that 25 milli- 

 grammes of the permanganate of potash did entirely neutralise 

 16*1 milligrammes of Bungarus fasciatus venom. It is evident, 

 then, that the salt will neutralise about its own weight of this 

 venom, but that its power in this direction has a definite limit, 

 as might have been expected. It is clear, then, that this agent 

 does act on every class of snake venom and renders them inert. 

 Owing to the limited time available and the small number of 

 animals for which a license had been obtained, the actual 

 experiments on the treatment after injection of the venoms 

 have been so far limited to those of the cobra as a typical 

 representative of tlie-Golubrine class, and of the Dahoia Russellii 

 as a common and deadly viper. Rabbits and cats were used in 

 the investigation, the latter on account of their mixed diet and 

 firmer tissues resembling more closely the human subject. The 

 venoms were dissolved in as small a quantity of sterile normal 

 saline solution (0*9 per cent. NaCl) as possible, so as to 

 resemble in concentration the natural venom. The portion 

 of the limb to be operated on was cleaned of hair by scissors 

 beforehand (as the human subject is free from this obstacle to 

 treatment). The strong solution of venom was then injected 

 into the subcutaneous tissues of the cleaned part of a hind limb 

 a little above the paw, as most snake bites in the human 

 subject occur on the distal parts of the extremities. After a 

 given measured time a ligature consisting of a piece of bandage 

 was tied loosely round the thigh and twisted up tightly by 

 means of a piece of stick or a pencil so as to temporarily stop 



