464 Proceedings of Royal Society of Edinburgh. [sess. 
ment, it is also to be recollected that antivenene can be obtained 
even more powerful than that which was used in the experiments 
which have been described ; and that, judging from the statistics of 
Fayrer and Wall, in 75 per cent, of fatal cases in man death does 
not occur until from three to twenty-four hours after the infliction 
of the bite. This latter fact appears to indicate that in the great 
majority of the fatal cases the dose of venom does not much exceed 
the actual minimum-lethal; and, therefore, is not so large as the 
doses whose lethal action has been prevented from occurring in 
the experiments that have been described ; in which, further, the 
conditions for success in preventing death were not the most 
favourable that could have been adopted. 
It appears to me, however, that an interest and importance 
as great as can be derived from this practical application of 
the facts which I have brought before the Society, are to be 
found in their relation to the cause and treatment of many of the 
most fatal of diseases — those, namely, which are produced by 
organisms that have found their way into the body. The evidence 
in favour of the curative value of the antitoxines derived from 
animals immunized against the toxines of these diseases, seems 
to receive an additional confirmation from these facts. They also 
bring distinctly before us the circumstance that there are limits 
to this curative power, dependent on the dose of the toxine to be 
counteracted, on the special antidotal activity of the antitoxine that 
is used, and on the duration of the time during which the toxine 
has had an opportunity of exerting its poisonous action before the 
antitoxine is administered. If these and other conditions interfer- 
ing with successful treatment are not determined and recognised, 
unmerited discredit is likely to be attached to remedies which 
alone of all remedies may be capable of preventing death in these 
diseases, by counteracting the effects of minimum-lethal and larger 
doses of the toxine. 
