SNAKE-POISON LITERATURE. 



167 



small, sufficient to produce symptoms of poison- 

 ing which lasted over days (in some instances), but 

 not enough to cause death. It is also absolutely 

 certain that the ammonia did not in any way cut 

 short the attack (so to speak) of snake-poisoning, as 

 Dr. Halford and his friends insisted it does in the 

 case of human beings so seriously affected as to 

 be in a state oi 'profound coma from snake-poison- 

 ing. Is not Dr. Mitchell's case, in which the dog 

 recovered after a bite without treatment, of a 

 much more serious character than any of the 

 above-mentioned five cases ? Great importance 

 having been attached to Professor Halford's cases, 

 I ventured in the columns of a Melbourne paper 

 to analyse them, and I think I proved that 

 symptoms of alcoholism were mistaken for 

 those of snake-poisoning. One of Dr. Halford's 

 champions wrote thus : — " I will not suppose 

 for one moment that a large proportion of our 

 rural surgeons are such a set of incapables 

 as our Indian friends imply — unable to distin- 

 guish between drunkenness and snake-bite." Now 

 there is really nothing very remarkable or 

 incapable in their " rural surgeons " ha'V'ing con- 

 founded the two, for while real cases of snake- 

 poisoning are comparatively exceedingly rare 



Symptoms of 

 drunkenness 

 and of snake- 

 poison 

 confounded. 



