CASES. 51 



recovery have been so rapid and complete. The two 

 poisons are thrown out together, and no ill -effects of 

 either are experienced beyond a certain degree of 

 weakness, which passes off quickly. This is a boon to 

 be appreciated fully by those only who have gone , 

 through the slow, lingering, and painful process of 

 convalescence from snakebite as formerly treated, with 

 its deadly languor and weariness, making life itself a 

 burden and all physical and mental exertion impossible. 



Case 1. — A. H., 15 years old, a farm labourer, was bitten on 

 tlie right index finger whilst feeling for a rabbit in a burrow. Did 

 not see the snake nor suspect snakebite, but collapsed helplessly in 

 a few minutes after returning to his work. The writer saw him 

 three hours after the accident. He was then completely paralysed 

 and in deep coma ; pupils widely dilated and not reacting to light ; 

 sense of sight and hearing dead ; heart action extremely feeble ; 

 pulse small, thread-like, and scarcely countable ; respiration quick 

 and shallow ; skin blanched and very cold Seeing him dragged 

 along the road between two men, had him quickly carried to the 

 next house, and injected 20 minims of liq. strychniie. Only a groan 

 or two and a slight improvement in the pulse, indicating a change 

 in his condition, gave him a second injection about twenty minutes 

 after the first one. A change for the better then became rapidly con- 

 spicuous. The pulse gained in strength from minute to minute, 

 respiration became deeper, and the coma was visibly reduced to 

 mere sleep, from which there was no difficulty in rousing him to full 

 consciousness by a vigorous shake of the shoulders. This marvellous 

 change was brought about within forty minutes ; and this being the 

 first case to which the writer had applied his theory by injecting 

 strychnine, its unparalleled success exceeded his most sanguine 

 expectations, but unfortunately also lulled him into a false sense of 

 security, which proved disastrous to his patient. Not knowing then as 

 he does now that the snake-poison after having been subdued by the 



