8 HISTORICAL REVIEW. 



to stem the collapse invariably attending snakebite by. 

 the administration of stimulants, such as alcohol, ether, 

 ammonia, &c. The attempt is vain, for a person in 

 collapse from snakebite cannot be stimulated by any 

 of these remedies, since neither the heart nor the nerve 

 centres respond to them in the slightest degree, as 

 they do in the absence of snake-poison, the only one 

 that has any effect at all in slight cases being ammonia. 

 But the attempt is not only in vain, it is highly in- 

 jurious, especially if made with the usual large doses 

 of alcohol, for, in addition to the latter not having the 

 slightest influence on the snake-poison and its baneful 

 effects, they act as an anaesthetic and thus add to the 

 existing depression, besides increasing the tendency to 

 internal haemorrhage. 



It might, under these circumstances, have been 

 expected that any new method of treating snakebite, 

 based on scientific grounds and holding out a sure 

 prospect of success, would be hailed with pleasure, and 

 that conservatism, opposing the new simply on account 

 of its newness, would refrain from its usual tactics in a 

 case where there was really nothing to conserve. But 

 this was not to be, and strange, indeed, it would have 

 been if the writer had escaped the opposition which is 

 almost invariably offered to the discoverer. It appears 

 to be one of the laws of human evolution, wisely de- 

 signed to prevent precipitate advance, that every 

 new discovery must run the gauntlet of men 

 whose mission it is to act as brakes on the wheels of 

 progress. Of the opposition which has been offered 



