42 THE ANTIDOTE. 



out interfering with their structure, you must be able 

 to counteract it by administering some drug or sub- 

 stance which acts as a powerful stimulant on these 

 cells, if such a substance can be found." 



It is another illustration of that wise adaptation 

 of means to ends which, throughout the domain of 

 nature, denotes the presence and rule of a Supreme 

 Intelligence, that this substance has been provided for 

 us by nature, though we have been long in finding it. 

 Its discovery in strychnine, and its successful applica- 

 tion as the long and vainly sought antidote to snake- 

 poison, are glorious triumphs of scientific deduction. 



Strychnine is the exact antithesis to snake-poison 

 in its action. Under its influence every motor nerve- 

 cell throughout the system sends forth stronger currents 

 of nerve force than it does in its normal state. Tliese 

 currents run alike from cell to cell, and from cell to 

 peripheral fibre, and act by means of the latter on all 

 contractile, and especially all muscular tissue, causing 

 contractions, which, after poisonous doses of the drug, 

 assume the form of tetanic convulsions, provoked by 

 the slightest touch or even noise in consequence of 

 highly intensified reflex action. 



Whilst, then, snake-poison, as we have seen, turns 

 off the motor-batteries and reduces the volume and 

 force of motor-nerve currents, strychnine, when follow- 

 ing it as an antidote, turns them on again, acting with 

 the unerring certainty of a chemical test, if adminis- 

 tered in sufficient quantity. Purely physiological in 

 its action, it neutralises the effects of the snake-poison, 



