SNAKE-POISON LITERATURE. 175 



death. ****** Dr. M'Crea and Dr. 

 Girdlestone, and, indeed, all experimenters, appear to see 

 clearly enough now the point which has been so long in- 

 sisted upon, that it is the quantity of the poison dose 

 upon which everything depends. If anything short of a 

 fatal dose is given, the patient recovers, and he recovers 

 with far more certainty if he is let alone than if he is 

 drenched with ammonia. » * * The results obtained 

 by the Medical Society of Victoria are strongly corrobo- 

 rative of this result, . and we must be excused for re- 

 peating what some of them are. Two small dogs were 

 poisoned with half a grain of virus, and were then afforded 

 such chance of existence as the ammonia treatment gives. 

 The one, weighing 17 lbs., lived two hours and forty 

 minutes : the other, weighing 20J lbs., lived three hours 

 and fifty-three minutes ; the average of the two being 

 three hours and seventeea minutes. A still smaller animal, 

 weighing only 10 lbs., received the same half-grain 

 dose of poison, and, considering his size, this victim 

 should have died in a still shorter time than the others, 

 but he was left alone, and he absolutely lived five hours 

 and forty-six minutes,or more than twice as long as 

 the dog that most nearly resembled him in size, and 

 who received the benefit of the antidote. Again, witness 

 the two dogs into which one grain was injected — one 

 weighing 54 lbs. died under the ammonia treatment 

 in twelve minutes ; his smaller brother, weighing 41 lbs., 

 who was left alone, lived two hours and thirty minutes, 

 or ten times as long as the dog under the antidote. 

 With the doga who were bitten by snakes, and who were 



