1896 - 97 .] Prof. Fraser on Properties of Bile of Serpents. 463 
under the skin containing a sufficient quantity of the anti-venomous 
constituent to antagonise a minimum-lethal dose of venom received 
half-an-hour previously, the constituents of the bile which are non- 
antidotal, hut at the same time toxic, might be so great in amount 
as to produce death. Thus, in an experiment made with African 
cobra bile, administered, in a dose estimated to he sufficient, thirty 
minutes after a minimum-lethal dose of cobra venom had been 
injected subcutaneously, the animal survived for four days ; 
whereas an animal used in a control experiment without bile died 
in six hours. During the two days before death, the animal which 
had received both bile and venom exhibited symptoms, however, 
which were rather those of bile than of venom poisoning. 
It is improbable, therefore, that the bile in its natural form could 
be used as an antidote except by stomach administration or by 
application to the wound caused by a snake-bite. 
The successful result of the attempt made to isolate its antidotal 
constituent has, however, rendered it possible to test the thera- 
peutic value of this constituent when it is introduced into the 
blood of an animal which had already received a lethal dose of 
venom. The quantity at my disposal being only small, no more 
than one experiment could be made ; and for the same reason, it 
was made on a white rat. Thirty minutes after the animal had 
received by subcutaneous injection *0003 grm. p. kilo, of Indian 
cobra venom, *012 grm. — equivalent to ‘075 grm. p. kilo. — of the 
part soluble in water of the alcoholic precipitate of puff-adder bile 
was injected under the skin of the opposite side of the body. Only 
slight symptoms of the action of the venom were manifested, con- 
sisting chiefly of loss of appetite and indisposition to go about ; but 
they had completely disappeared at the end of twenty-four hours. 
In a control experiment, a white rat of almost the same weight 
received by subcutaneous injection a part of the same solution of 
Indian cobra venom, representing also a dose of ‘0003 grm. p. kilo. 
Grave symptoms were produced in a few hours, and the animal 
was dead on the following day. 
This experiment, taken in conjunction with the considerable 
number of in vitro experiments that have been made, not only 
supplies strong confirmation of the evidence given by the latter 
experiments that bile is able to render serpents’ venom inert, but 
