"INSTITUTO SERUMTHERAPICO " 13 



animals, on mammals, or birds. Some live exclusively 

 on batrachians, others only on lizards, a few only on 

 insects. A very few species live exclusively on other 

 snakes. These include one very formidable venomous 

 snake, the Indian hamadryad, or giant cobra, and several 

 non-poisonous snakes. In Africa I killed a small cobra 

 which contained within it a snake but a few inches 

 shorter than itself ; but, as far as I could find out, snakes 

 were not the habitual diet of the African cobras. 



The poisonous snakes use their venom to kill their 

 victims, and also to kill any possible foe which they 

 think menaces them. Some of them are good-tempered, 

 and only fight if injured or seriously alarmed. Others are 

 excessively irritable, and on rare occasions will even 

 attack of their own accord when entirely unprovoked 

 and unthreatened. 



On reaching Sao Paulo on our southward journey 

 from Rio to Montevideo, we drove out to the "Instituto 

 Serumth^rapico," designed for the study of the effects 

 of the venom of poisonous Brazilian snakes. Its director 

 is Doctor Vital Brazil, who has performed a most extra- 

 ordinary work, and whose experiments and investigations 

 are not only of the utmost value to Brazil, but will ulti- 

 mately be recognized as of the utmost value for humanity 

 at large. I know of no institution of similar kind 

 anywhere. It has a fine modern building, and the 

 best appliances for making experiments with all kinds 

 of serpents, living and dead, with the object of 

 discovering all the properties of their several kinds of 

 venom, and of developing various anti-venom serums 

 which nullify the eiFects of the different venoms. Every 

 effort is made to teach the people at large, by practical 

 demonstration in the open field, the lessons thus learned 

 in the laboratory. One notable result has been the 



