46 THE ANTIDOTE. 



should be felt by medical men in other snake- infested 

 countries to adopt the Australian treatment. It is 

 seldom that more than halt a grain of strychnine 

 administered in 16m, doses of liq. strychnise is required 

 here to effectually counteract the venom and place its 

 intended victim out of danger. Ligature and excision 

 of the bitten skin have usually been practised and 

 much of the poison eliminated before the antidote is 

 applied. Our snakes, however, as already pointed out, 

 with their shorter and merely grooved fangs, do not 

 perforate the cellular tissue to such depth nor instil as 

 large a quantity of poison as the cobras, kraits and 

 vipers of India or the rattlesnake of America, all 

 having perforated and much longer fangs and much 

 more productive poison glands. Even if after the 

 bite of a vigorous cobra, for instance, a ligature has 

 been applied and the bitten part deeply excised, a 

 comparatively large quantity of poison will probably be 

 absorbed requiring much larger quantities of the anti- 

 dote, perhaps grains of it, to effect a cure. 



If under the influence of these large doses the 

 symptoms abate, or if the latter are comparatively 

 mild from the first, smaller doses of strychnine should 

 be injected, say from 1/1 5th to 1/lOth of a grain, but 

 under all circumstances the rule that, distinct strych- 

 nia symptoms must be produced before the injections 

 are discontinued, should never be departed from. 

 This rule is a perfectly safe one, for its observance 

 entails no danger, a few muscular spasms or even slight 

 tetanic convulsions being easily subdued and harmless 



