334 VENOMS 



XIII. — Case reported by Dr. Deschamps, of Thies (Senegal). 



" In the month of October, 1898, I was called to a native, a 

 local constable, who had just been bitten by a Naja. The Ouoloffs 

 of Senegal are much afraid of the bites of this reptile, since they 

 are generally fatal. In this case the man had been bitten in the 

 forehead by a snake, which was coiled up in his bed, as he was 

 placing his head on the pillow. Being in the dark, he got up 

 greatly frightened, lit a candle, and saw the snake glide from his 

 bed and escape through the half-open door. I arrived a few 

 minutes after the accident ; the constable already felt very weak, 

 and complained of nausea and of pains in the head and back of 

 the neck. In the middle region of the forehead I found two 

 adjacent wounds, around which the tissues were oedematous. I 

 washed the wounds with a solution of permanganate of potash, 

 and had a telegram sent to St. Louis asking for antivenomous 

 serum. Half an hour after the bite, the patient was seized with 

 vomiting and cold sweats. At 6 a.m. on the following day there 

 was considerable oedema of the face and dyspnoea, while the pulse 

 was small and intermittent. The patient, who had not slept, was 

 dull and depressed. He vomited a little milk which I tried to 

 make him take. Forty hours after the bite the patient, who 

 was already paralysed, became comatose ; the face and neck were 

 enormously swollen. The dyspnoea had increased ; it was difficult 

 to hear the respiratory murmur; the pulse was thready, slow, and 

 intermittent ; the skin was cold ; the temperature, taken in the 

 axilla, was 35'8° C. At this moment the serum asked for arrived 

 from St. Louis. I injected into the buttock the only dose that 

 I possessed, 10 c.c. The coma persisted throughout the evening 

 and during part of the night ; at 6 a.m. on the following day, 

 fourteen hours after the injection, the patient awoke and said 

 that he felt quite well. The oedema of the face and neck had 

 diminished, that of the eyelids had disa)|)peared. Three days 

 later the constable returned to duty." 



XIV. — Case reported by Professors H. P. Keatenje and A. 

 Buffer (Cairo). 



