1894-95.] Antivencnc and Immunization against Venom. 451 
some direct result of the absorption of venom ; and, therefore, that 
its existence could be proved or disproved by experiment. In the 
former event, the first steps would already have been taken to 
obtain, by further experiments, results likely to be of value in the 
treatment of poisoning by serpents’ venom ; and, indeed, likely to 
be of importance in even the wider field of general therapeutics. 
With these objects, endeavours were made to collect a sufficient 
quantity of venom ; but the collection has proceeded but slowly, 
and only after several years has a supply gradually been accumulated 
sufficiently large to render it probable that definite results would 
be obtained before the supply of venom had become exhausted in 
the experiments. 
I received my first supply of cobra venom in 1879, from Surgeon- 
Colonel Moir, lately of Meerut, and afterwards — also in small 
quantities — from the late Dr Shortt of Madras, and from Sir 
Joseph Fayrer, the Thakore of Gondal, and Dr Phillips. Larger 
quantities were subsequently obtained from Surgeon-Captain 
French, and through the kind efforts of Sir William Mackinnon, 
Director-General of the Army Medical Department, from each of 
the Presidencies of India. Early in this year, an additional supply 
was received from Surgeon-Colonel Cunningham of Calcutta, and 
this gentleman has quite recently sent a further large quantity of 
several grammes of dry venom. 
But, besides these specimens of the venom of the cobra of India, 
I have also been fortunate in obtaining specimens of venoms from 
other parts of the world. 
From America, Dr Weir Mitchell of Philadelphia — whose work 
on the chemistry and physiology of serpents’ venom constitutes the 
great advance of the century on the venom of viperine serpents — 
has supplied me with the venom of three species of rattlesnakes 
— viz., Crotalus horridus, C. adamanteus, and C. durrisus, and also 
with a specimen of the venom of the Copper Head [Ttigonocephalus 
contortrix). 
From Australia, Dr Thomas Bancroft, of Brisbane, has at various 
times sent specimens of the venoms of the black snake {PseudecMs 
porphyriacus), the brown snake (Diemenia superciliosa)^ and of a 
large unidentified snake of the Diamantina district of South 
Australia (probably a new species of Diemenia). 
