PREFACE. 111. 



it is a peaceful conquest not attained by means of 

 doubtful justification, and whicli have hitherto invari- 

 ably failed in their object. This object — the discovery 

 of the coveted antidote — instead of being brought 

 nearer, was, in fact, further removed by every succeed- 

 ing series of experiments. However fruitful in results 

 this mode of research has been in other domains, in 

 this particular one it has not only been a failure but 

 an actual bar to progress. Nature invariably refused 

 to yield her secret when thus interrogated. The 

 tortured animals, like the victims of Torquemada, 

 either did not answer at all or they answered with a 

 lie, and the baffled experimenter abandoned his task in 

 despair. 



Still, these negative results notwithstanding, the 

 writer is confronted by a certain class of would-be 

 rigorous scientists, who tell him that his theory of the 

 action of snake-poison, though it explains all the 

 phenomena, cannot be accepted as correct until it has 

 been proven so by strict test experiments on animals, 

 and that the successful administration of the antidote 

 is proof only of the fact of neither antidote nor snake- 

 poison having killed the patients, who, probably, 

 might have recovered if left to themselves. This 

 may be strict logic, but common sense replies to it 

 that if recoverytakes place after proper administra- 

 tion of the antidote in cases which, according to all 

 our previous experience, would have ended fatally, it 

 is not illogical to assume that antidote and recovery 

 stand in the relation of cause and effect. This sceptical 



