ON SERPENT-WORSHIP AND VENOMOUS SNAKES. 121 



required ; for the snake virus, when the system is thus saturated 

 with it, re-asserts itself repeatedly, after having been temporarily 

 subdued by the antidote, and each relapse has to be met by 

 another injection, if not by two or three. In such cases the 

 strain on the delicate nerve-cells, that form the field of battle 

 between the two poisons, may become too great. Only a very 

 robust constitution, as our Australian experience has shown, can 

 withstand that strain, and emerge scatheless from the ordeal. The 

 antidote is also powerless to save life, when it is administered 

 after extensive internal haemorrhages have taken place. But given 

 a serious case of cobra-bite, in which at an early stage by prompt 

 ligature and deep excision of the bitten part the poison has been 

 partially eliminated, but which would nevertheless terminate fatally 

 under any other treatment, there is not the least doubt in my 

 mind that the strychnine treatment properly applied would cope 

 with it as successfully as it has done with apparently hopeless 

 cases of tiger-snake bite ; for our Australian cobra, the tiger- 

 snake (hoplocephalus curtus) is quite as deadly as the Indian cobra, 

 in fact, quantity for quantity, its poison is even more so, but 

 fortunately for its victims, given off less profusely. 



13 The adoption of the strychnine treatment in India, as well as 

 in all other countries infested with venomous snakes, is merely a 

 matter of time, but time unfortunately means a terrible loss of 

 human life. I therefore appeal most earnestly to Sir Joseph Fayrer 

 and other influential members of the medical profession to exert 

 their influence in bringing about an early introduction of the 

 treatment in India, on the lines laid down by me in these 

 comments. My own efforts in that direction have been un- 

 remitting, and supported by two Australian Governors, but His 

 Excellency the Viceroy had necessarily to refer them to the 

 medical authorities, and the latter decline to move in the matter 

 on the ground of a few experiments on dogs, the failure of which 

 is easily explained. They cannot be weighed in the balance 

 against the favourable observations made for the last four years in 

 Australia, and the results of recent European research. 



NOTE ON THE FOREGOING. 



All will recognise that Dr. Mueller's statements are specially 

 worthy of attention, and it is a subject for general congratulation 

 that he has already gone so deeply into the task of seeking to give 

 the world a remedy for a great evil. 



As regards the remarks in the third panigraph of his com- 



