4 INTRODUCTION. 



hope that it will be complemented and supplemented by some of the able staff of 

 the British Army Medical Service in the East Indies. There, only, is it possible 

 to find enough serpents, and all the various species which it will be desirable tc 

 review toxicologically from the new stand-point which we think we have estab- 

 lished. 



We have forborne to overload this paper with comments on the later researches 

 of others, and have made the discussion of our own work as brief as was consistent 

 with clearness. 



In writing of the various substances contained in venoms, we have given them 

 names which are fairly descriptive, but which, as in the case of the peculiar 

 peptone of Cobra, may perhaps excite criticism. Yet, however unsatisfactory our 

 method of nomenclature may be, any other plan of naming the curious bodies in 

 question would certainly have been even more misleading. 



