CASES. 55 



land, Mr. Johnstone, who is his uncle, and now police magistrate at 

 Maryborough, Queensland, with his success in treating snakebite 

 with strychnine. Mr. Johnstone, who during his explorations had 

 seen much of snakebite and many deaths from it, wrote rather 

 incredulously in reply, stating that our southern snakes were 

 innocuous in comparison w^ith those of the north ; and that, having 

 seen twelve persons bitten and die by the deadly brown snake of 

 the. north (Diemenia super ciliosa), he must withhold his belief in 

 the new antidote until he had witnessed a case of brown snakebite 

 cured by it or reported on good authority. This desire he had 

 quickly gratified, and by a strange fatality in his own person. 

 Whilst taking his children for a walk in the bush a few weeks 

 afterwards he stepped aside the path to pluck a flower from a bush, 

 and in doing so was bitten on the leg by a vigorous brown snake. 

 He at once applied a ligature, and had the punctures sucked by an 

 aboriginal, but became comatose before he reached home. Tiiree 

 medical men were summoned in haste, injected ammonia into 

 several veins, and finally had to resort to artificial respiration, 

 declaring the case a hopeless one. In this extremity INIrs Johnstone 

 rushed to a fourth one, who had seen Dr. Thwaites' letter, and dis- 

 cussed its contents with her husband in her presence. This gentleman 

 — Dr. Garde — laid up in bed, quickly furnished the lady with liq. 

 strychnite, accompanied by the request to his colleagues to inject it 

 freely. She came back to her husband's bedside, when artificial respira- 

 tion was about to be given up, but the very first injection rendered it 

 no longer necessary and two more restored Mr. Johnstone completely. 

 Saving the life of this highly respected and popular functionary, who 

 was the first in Queensland treated with the antidote, paved the 

 way for it in that colony, where it is most needed and is now highly 

 appreciated. 



These five cases, thoroughly typical of the effects of strychnine 

 in snakebite, are almost in themselves sufficient to bear out the 

 correctness of the writer's deductions, but for the benefit of a certain 

 class of rigorously incredulous scientists, who would not be satisfied 

 with five cases, the writer submits 45 more and in addition to these 



