1358 



ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY BULLETIN 



TEXAS DIAMOND-BACK RATTLESNAKE 

 This is the snake that caused Keeper Toomey's trouble. 



TREATMENT OF OUR FIRST CASE OF SNAKE BITE 



By Raymond L. Ditmars. 



NATURE has provided the snake's hypoder- 

 mic fangs and connecting poison glands 

 for the purpose of killing; primarily for 

 killing the prey; secondarily, to overpower an 

 enemy. Through the ages of evolution, these 

 terrible weapons of the poisonous snake have 

 been perfected, and the lethal power of the 

 poison intensified. For about twenty years the 

 most practical treatment of snake-bite has been 

 the injection of an anti-venomous serum. The 

 history of artificial immunity began with the 

 introduction of vaccination by Jenner. Pasteur 

 afterwards introduced a method of protecting 

 animals against certain infectious diseases by 

 inoculating susceptible animals with cultures 

 of bacteria or their products, which were weak- 

 ened in virulence. Finally, it was discovered 

 that the blood serum of animals so immunized 

 could be utilized to cure disease in other ani- 

 mals. The curative anti-venomous serum is an 

 antidote produced as a result of our knowledge 



acquired through the laboratory study of the 

 formation of certain substances (antibodies) in 

 the blood, aj^pearing only during infection. 

 These substances have the power of forming 

 antidotes to neutralize or annul the poisonous 

 products. The reader must bear in mind that 

 the application of the anti-venomous serum in 

 snake-bite is employed as an antidote rather 

 than a true antitoxin, as applied in the treat- 

 ment of infectious diseases. If we inject into 

 an animal gradually increasing doses of the tox- 

 ins of a disease-producing micro-organism, not 

 only does the animal acquire immunity against 

 that poison, but its blood-serum will neutralize 

 or render inert this poison if mixed with it; 

 consequently if we inject some of this immune 

 serum into an animal already suffering from 

 that particular poison, it will enable it to re- 

 cover. This body is called an antitoxin. Horses 

 are generally used for the production of various 

 antitoxins. 



