SNAKE-POISON LITERATURE. 91 



relative to the cure of persons bitten by snakes, 

 selected from a number of cases which have 

 come within my own knowledge, requires no 

 prefatory introduction, as it points out the 

 means of obtaining the greatest self-gratifica- 

 tion the human mind is capable of experiencing, 

 that of the preservation of the life of a fellow 

 creature, and snatching him from the jaws of 

 death, by a method which every person is capable 

 of availing himself of." Professor Halford could 

 not have written in a more laudatory tone of 

 the system of treatment he has so persistently 

 advocated. As no system of treatment is com- 

 plete without a theory, Mr. Williams stirs one 

 up from the depths of his imagination, which, 

 though somewhat weak and obscure, is still a 

 theory. He observes that, " as the poison Mr. wmiams' 

 diffuses itself over the body by the returning 

 venous blood, " as proved by the effects of a 

 ligature placed between the wound and heart, 

 destroying the irritability and rendering the 

 systena paralytic, it is probable that volatile 

 caustic alkali, in resisting the disease of the 

 poison, does not act so much as a specific in 

 destroying its quality, as by counteracting the 

 effect on the system, by stimulating the fibres, 



theory. 



