XI 



CURES FOR SNAKE-BITE 



In a little book on the snakes of India, published 

 many years ago by Dr. Nicholson of the Madras 

 Medical Service, the conviction was expressed that 

 the snake-charmers of Burmah knew of some anti- 

 dote to the poison of the cobra which gave them 

 confidence in handling it. He said that nothing 

 would induce them to divulge it, but that he sus- 

 pected it consisted in gradual inoculation with 

 the venom itself. Putting the question to himself 

 why he did not attempt to attest this by experi- 

 ment, he replied that there were two reasons, which, 

 if I recollect rightly, were, first, that he had a strong 

 natural repugnance to anything like cruelty to 

 animals, and, secondly, that he had observed that 

 as soon as a man got the notion into his head that 

 he had discovered a cure for snake-bite, he began to 

 show symptoms of insanity. 



It is rather remarkable that, after so many years, 

 another Scottish doctor, not in Madras, but in 

 Edinburgh, has proved, by just such experiments 

 as Dr. Nicholson shrank from, that an " aged and 

 previously sedate horse" may, by gradual inocula- 



"5 



