for the year 1876. xix 



Some very interesting discussions on the efficacy of 

 the intravenous injection of ammonia in cases of bites 

 by Australian snakes have recently taken place at the 

 Medical Society of Victoria, and perhaps there is no 

 other subject that has cropped up in medical and surgical 

 science during the past year which will have more 

 interest for Australians than this. It cannot be said, that 

 the result of these discussions, or of the experiments which 

 led to them, is altogether satisfactory, although there can be 

 no doubt that in the evidence. adduced, and the exchange of 

 opinion, the knowledge of the whole question has been con- 

 siderably advanced. When Professor Halford proved that a 

 powerful agent like ammonia could, under certain conditions, 

 be passed directly into the circulating blood, and so carried 

 mechanically to the heart, and probably the nervous centres, 

 without much danger, and that its effect in his hands ap- 

 peared to be that animals apparently dying, from snake bites 

 especially, were rapidly re- vitalised as it were, it naturally 

 occurred to him as an appropriate remedy to try on the 

 snake-poisoned human subject. This, as you know, was 

 done, and the patient recovered ; many other cases of a more 

 or less similar nature occurred, where recovery from what at 

 the time seemed a hopeless condition was apparently brought 

 about by the injection of ammonia ; and the opinion of a 

 large number of intelHgent medical men was in favour of 

 the adoption of this treatment for such cases. Other equally 

 intelligent medical men had doubts of the efficacy of this 

 remedy, and eventually a committee of the Medical Society 

 was appointed to carry out a series of experiments to test 

 the value of ammonia injection in snake poison. Their 

 report was so utterly adverse to the ordinarily received 

 opinion, that a very animated and interesting discussion took 

 place at several meetings of the Society, but the balance of 

 opinion was still in favour of ammonia injection as a remedy 



