324 Sir L. Brunton, Sir J. Fayrer, and Dr. L. Rogers. [Feb. 22 r 



previously injected, and also when both venom and antidote were 

 injected directly into the vein. At the time of presenting his note to 

 the Academy of Science in Paris, M. Lacerda was apparently unaware 

 of the previous experiments by Blyth, Brunton and Fayrer. In a later 

 publication* he discusses their experiments, but claims for himself to 

 have scientifically demonstrated permanganate of potash to be a 

 precious antidote to serpent venom, and to have brought it into 

 common use, and thinks, therefore, that the priority belongs to him ; 

 but he was apparently unaware that instructions for its use with 

 the ligature had many years before been promulgated by Fayrer 

 in India. 



In the winter of 1881 a number of experiments were made by 

 Dr. Vincent Richards, who found, like the previous experimenters, 

 that Cobra poison was completely destroyed by permanganate of 

 potash when mixed with it in vitro, so that death did not follow the 

 injection of the mixture either hypodermically or into a vein. He 

 found also that when Cobra poison was injected into a dog, and 

 the injection followed either immediately or after an interval of 

 4 minutes by a hypodermic injection into the same part of a solution of 

 permanganate of potash no symptoms of Cobra poisoning resulted, but 

 after the development of symptoms of Cobra poisoning permanganate 

 of potash failed to have any effect whether injected locally or into a 

 vein or both. 



These results obtained both by Lacerdaf and Richards seemed to give 

 good hope that permanganate of potash might be used to lessen the 

 appalling fatalities from snake bite in India, but it is evident that the 

 hypodermic injection of a solution can never be widely employed 

 because the hypodermic syringe is expensive, it is liable to get out of 

 order just at the times that it is wanted and the solution may become 

 dried or spilt or may not be available. It is evident that the first 

 requisite for any antidote to snake poisoning is that it shall be always 

 at hand ; second, that it shall be easily applied ; and thirdly, that it 

 shall be cheap. 



About two years ago one of us (Brunton) was asked on behalf of a 

 young officer going out to India, to design an instrument which might 

 be used in case of snake bite. He did so accordingly, and he has since 

 had a similar one made for him by Messrs. Arnold and Sons which 

 seems to combine the three requisites just noted. It consists of a 

 lancet-shaped blade about half an inch long, long enough in fact to 

 reach the deepest point of a bite by the largest snake. He has had 

 some instruments made with a double edge like an ordinary lancet, 

 and others with one edge sharp and the other edge blunt, so as to 



* Lacerda, ' Comptes Bendus,' vol. 93, p. 466. 



f " O Veneno ophidico e sens antidotos," Dr. J. B. de Lacerda, Bio de 

 Janeiro, Lombaerts, &c, 1881, p. 64. 



