ANTI-VENENE 117 



the conclusion that there is no practical cure for 

 the bite of a poisonous snake. For what avails it 

 to carry about in your travelling bag a phial of 

 strong ammonia and to live in more jeopardy of 

 death by asphyxiation than you ever were by 

 snakes, unless you have some guarantee that, when 

 it is your fate to be bitten by a snake, the phial 

 will be at hand ? For ammonia must act on the 

 venom before the venom has had time to act upon 

 you, or it will only add another pain to your end ; 

 and that gives only a few minutes to go upon. So 

 with nitric acid and every agent that operates by 

 neutralising the poison and not by counteracting its 

 effects. And this has been the character of all the 

 remedies hitherto put forward. " They are," says 

 Sir Joseph Fayrer, " absolutely without any specific 

 effect on the condition produced by the poison." 



But " anti-venene," as Dr. Fraser calls his im- 

 munised blood-serum, follows the poison into the 

 system, even after the fatal symptoms have begun 

 to show themselves, and arrests them at once. So 

 the Anglo-Indian may throw away his ammonia 

 phial and, arming himself with another of anti- 

 venene and a hypodermic syringe, feel that he is safe 

 against an accident which will never happen. As 

 for the man who is not nervous, he will speak of the 

 new antidote, and think of it as most interesting 

 and valuable, and go on his way as before with no 

 expectation of ever being bitten by a venomous 

 snake. The medical man of every degree will 



