20 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY, Vol. XV 11. 



poisons. The serum, therefore, would be of little or no therapeutic value 

 in cases of bites from these three snakes. Finally, this serum contains 

 no anti-toxic substances which are active against ihe venom of Bungarus 

 eceruleus or against the venoms of the following viperine snakes : — 

 Vipera Russellii, Echis carinata, Lachesis gramineus and Crotalus 

 adamanteus. 



With the daboia venom anti-serum very similar results were 

 obtained. It was found that this serum has no action whatever on any 

 of the colubrine poisons, five in number, against which it was tested ; 

 that it neutralises well its homologous venom ; that it has a certain, but 

 not very marked, neutralising effect on the venom of another viper, 

 namely, the American rattle snake : and that it has no anti-toxic action 

 for the venom of a closely allied viper, Echis carinata, nor for that ot 

 another Indian viper, Lachesis gramineus. 



These results which I have collated above only refer to observations 

 made in animals, that is to say, when the life of an animal is used as 

 the index of the neutralisation of the poison by the serum. In other 

 words these experiments only refer to the neutralising power of the 

 serums for the complete general actions of the venoms on the organism. 

 But there are other and very delicate methods outside of the animal 

 body of testing this specificity question. We can test them in test-tubes 

 against the actions which the various poisons exert on the red blood 

 corpuscles and on the coagulability of the blood plasma. This has 

 been done with the three serums mentioned above. When tested against 

 the hemolytic actions of the different venoms, that is to say, the actions 

 which they exert on the red blood corpuscles as evidenced by the dis- 

 solving up of these bodies, cobra venom anti-serum was found to have 

 a high neutralising effect for its homologous venom ; to prevent, 

 when used in relatively large amount, this action of the venom of 

 Bungarus cceruleus, but to have no hindering effect at all on the 

 hcemolysing actions of eight other venoms, amongst which was 

 the poison of the King Cobra. Very similar results were obtained 

 with Tidswell's serum which, however, proved not quite so specific 

 in its action as the serum prepared with cobra venom. The 

 serum prepared with dahoia venom has also been tested against 

 this action of the various venoms. It was found to have no 

 neutralising effect for any colubrine poison ; to neutralise the venom 

 of Echis carinata as well as it did that of the poison with which it was 



