VARIOUS EXPERIMENTS. 385 



It is quite unnecessary to mention my various experiments 

 in extenso. I found that when permanganate of potash was 

 immediately rubbed into free incisions made over the site of 

 the injection of snake venom, or the direct bites of venomous 

 snakes, recovery frequently took place when higher animals 

 were experimented on. Success was in proportion to the quantity 

 of poison injected, the time which had elapsed between the appli- 

 cation of the remedy and the time of the injection of the venom. 

 If the potash was applied five minutes or more after the injection 

 of venom, it was unsuccessful, and death always occurred. In 

 every case animals showed absolutely no signs of poisoning 

 when I injected a mixture of venom and permanganate. In many 

 instances I mixed fifty times a fatal dose of Cobra venom with a 

 little permanganate and injected it without any poisonous effect. 



The permanganate of potash was found to be useless in the 

 case of highly susceptible animals such as fowls and rabbits, 

 these creatures often dying within five minutes after the entry 

 of the venom into their tissues. On experimentation I found 

 that fowls and rabbits died rapidly if even a very small dose 

 of venom was injected into them— a dose not nearly sufficient 

 to cause death in higher animals. They were particularly 

 susceptible to Cobra, Ringhals, and Boomslang venom, usually 

 dying within ten minutes — sometimes instantly. It was 

 apparent that when these animals were bitten, enough venom 

 was at once taken up into the blood vessels to cause death, hence 

 the reason the potash did not avert a fatal issue. 



This can be better realized when it is learned that a Cobra 

 is able to inject a hundred or more fatal doses into a small 

 animal at a single full bite. In experiments on Vervet monkeys 

 and half-grown Baboons with Cape Cobras I found that if a full 

 bite was inflicted, it was useless ligaturing and applying perman- 

 ganate to the scarified wounds. The reason was that sufftcient 

 venom got absorbed to cause death before it was possible to apply 

 any treatment for the purpose of retarding the absorption of the 

 venom, or destroying it in the wound. A full bite is understood 

 to mean when the snake grips like a dog and holds on for a few 

 seconds. 



Judging from these experiments, it is reasonable to conclude 

 that if a person be bitten by a venomous snake, and if he rubs 

 permanganate of potash into incisions made over the site of the 



2 c 



