120 JOURNAL, BOMBA Y NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY^ Vol. X. 



almost simultaneously injected into opposite sides of the body ; in the third 

 series the antivenene was injected some considerable time before the venom ; 

 and in the fourth series the Yenom was first injected, and thirty minutes 

 afterwards the antivenene. 



All, or nearly all, the experiments required to define the exact quantity of 

 antivenene that is sufficient to prevent death from diif erent lethal doses of 

 venom have been as yet made only in the first and fourth of these series. 

 They are, however, in some respects the most important of the series, as the 

 conditions for exactitude in simultaneous administration are perfectly obtained 

 in the first series, and it therefore should constitute the basis for comparison 

 between antivenenes derived from diiferent sources, and as upon the results 

 of the fourth series must depend the actual pi'actical application of antivenene 

 in the treatment of poisoning by serpents' bites. 



In the experiments of the first series the doses of cobra venom administered 

 were the minimum lethal, twice the minimum lethal, and thrice the minimum 

 lethal. In the case of each dose experiments were made with different 

 quantities of antivenene so as to determine the quantity required to prevent 

 death. In order to render it certam that a lethal dose was always administered 

 in the experiments with the so-called minimum lethal, the minimum lethal 

 indicated by the previous experiments was not used, but instead a slightly 

 larger dose (0'00026 instead of 0'000245 g, per kilogramme). 



When this certainly lethal dose, capable of causing death in five or six 

 hours, was mixed with antivenene and the mixture then injected under the 

 skin, it was found that so small quantities of antivenene were sufficient to 

 prevent death as 0*5 c. cm,, 0-25, O'l, 0-05, 0-02, 0-01, O'OOS, 0-004 c. cm. (i, i, 

 JL ,^i_ -i_, ^ig, ^^, -^i^, of a c, cm,) for each kilogramme of the weight of the 

 animal. With 0"0025 c. cm, (4^0)) however, the animal died. The antivenene 

 was therefore found to be so powerful as an antidote in the conditions of these 

 experiments that even the -50 part of a cubic centimetre, equivalent to about 

 I part of a minim, acted as an efficient antidote. Even with the smaller of 

 these doses of antivenene there was almost no symptom of poisoning produced. 

 In the experiments of this series with twice the m.inimum lethal dose recovery 

 occurred when the doses of antivenene were 0°75 c, cm.,0'7 c. cm., and 0'6 c, cm. 

 per kilogramme, but 0*5 c, cm, per kilogramme failed to prevent death. 

 In the experiments with thrice the minimum lethal dose of venom (a dose 

 cabable of producing death in less than two hours) recovery occurred when 

 the doses of antivenene were 1'5 c. cm, and 1 c, cm., but death occurred with 

 0'8 c. cm., and even the enormous dose of four times the minimum lethal 

 failed to produce death, or, indeed, any observable disturbance, when it had 

 previously been mixed with 2 c, cm. per kilogramme of antivenene. 



In the second series experiments have been made only with twice the 

 minimum lethal dose of venom. When this dose was injected into the 

 subcutaneous tissue of one side of the body, and immediately thereafter a 



