I HISTORICAL REVIEW. 



themselves -all the available oxygen and producing 

 carbonic acid, as the saccharomyces does in alcoholic 

 fermentation. Others again, and among them those 

 supposed to be the highest authorities on the subject 

 now living, divide the honors between nerve and blood. 

 Some snakes they allege are nerve-poisoners others as 

 surely poison the blood, but with one solitary exception 

 they assume the terminations of the motor-nerves and . 

 not the centres to be affected. 



Thus then with regard to theories we have hitherto 

 had " confusion worse confounded," and as with theories 

 so it has been with antidotes. They were proposed in 

 numbers, but only to be given up again, some intended 

 to decompose and destroy the subtle poison in the 

 system, others to counteract its action on the system 

 with that action unknown. It is scarcely too much to 

 assert that there are but few chemicals and drugs in 

 the materia medica that have not been tried as antidotes 

 in experiments on animals and dozens upon dozens 

 that have been tried in vain on man. 



The reasons for this somewhat chaotic state of our 

 science on a subject of so much interest to mankind ate 

 various. The countries of Europe, in which scientific 

 research is most keenly pursued, have but few indi- 

 genous, and these comparatively harmless snakes. The 

 best scientific talent has, therefore, only exceptionally 

 been brought to bear on the subject. In those coun- 

 tries on the other hand in which venomous snakes 

 abound and opportunities for observing the poison- 



