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INOCULATION AGAINST THE VENOM OF SNAKES AND 



THE NEW TREATMENT OF VENOMOUS BITES. 



By Doctor A. CalMette, 



Director of the Pmteur Institute at Lille. 



The fact has long been recorded that certain warm-blooded ani- 

 mals — the mongoose, the pig, and the hedgehog, for example — present 

 a natural immunity to the bites of snakes. The pig readily devours 

 vipers, and is even trained^ in some countries, to destroy these animals. 



During my stay in Indo-'Ghina, I inoculated a young pig with a 

 dose of cobra poison sufficient to kill a large dog ; the animal resisted 

 the poison, but I did not repeat this experiment. In the Pasteur 

 Institute I experimented with a specimen of pig's serum from the 

 slaughter-house ; 3cc, 5cc. and 8cc. of this serum mixed with a fatal 

 dose of cobra poison showed no antitoxic effect in vitro. The rabbits 

 which had received these mixtures^ as well as others which had 

 received lOcc. of pig's serum as a preventive, died at the same time as 

 the control animals which had been inoculated with the fatal dose of 

 venom diluted with 8cc. of water. 



Thanks to the kindness of M. Lecorre, Chief Medical Officer for 

 the Colonies, and of M. Pignet> Chemist for the Colonies, I have been 

 able to procure six living mongooses from Martinique^ and I have 

 ascertained that the saying in the Antilles which attributes to these little 

 carnivores ( Viverrides, genus Ilerpestes) a real immunity against the 

 bites ot Trigonocephalus fer-de-lance is partially justified. Mongooses 

 were imported from Barbadoes to Guadaloupe twenty-five years ago 

 with the view of destroying the rats in the island. At the present time 

 an effort is being made to spread them to Martinique, because they 

 wage desperate war against the snakes and rats which, to the great 

 injury of the Colonists, abound in the sugar plantations. 



The six mongooses which were sent to me had been captured in 

 Guadaloupe, where there are no venomous snakes. During their stay 

 in Martinique they remained in captivity; their immunity with regard 

 to the venom could not therefore proceed from their being accustomed 

 to the bites of venomous reptiles. 



Immediately on their arrival at the laboratory I placed one of the 

 mongooses in a glass cage with a large cobra de capello. The cobra sat 



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