222 
H. C. YARROW. 
It is but fair to state in connection with the credit given to 
de Lacerda that Dr. Armand Gautin of Paris, about the same 
period, in experiments with cobra and rattlesnake poison, came 
to the conclusion that a solution of caustic potassa acted as an 
antidote to the venom, and his memoir was read before the Acad 
emy of Medicine, July 26, 1881. 
In 1884 Dr. de Lacerda published in Rio de Janeiro an 8vo. 
volume of 200 pages, entitled “Lemons sur le Yenin des Serpents 
du Bresil et sur la Methode de Traitement des Morsures Veni- 
meuses par le Permanganate de Potasse,” in which he reiterates 
his opinion regarding the antidotal value of the permanganate, 
and states that his discovery is “ a veritable scientific and human¬ 
itarian conquest of which the happy results have been verified a 
thousand times, not only in Brazil, but throughout the world.” 
In closing he says : “ It is not for my country alone that I have 
written these pages, for I hope they will be read in many parts 
of the globe. It is for this that I appeal to the competent men 
of all countries, begging them to correct any faults or errors I 
may have made, and to fill up the gaps that may exist in this 
book.” The writer would state that these few sentences of Dr. 
de Lacerda instigated him to perform the experiments which will 
be given hereafter. 
Much attention, of late years, has been attracted, especially in 
the British colonies, to the so-called discovery by Dr. George B. 
Halford of liq. ammonia as an antidote to serpent venom, and 
while the intravenous injection of this liquid may have originated 
with him, the substance is one which has been repeatedly tried 
and failed, even so far back as the time of Fontana. Halford’s 
theory appealed so strongly to the popular mind that in Mel¬ 
bourne, Australia, hundreds of hypodermic syringes were sold to 
the settlers, who fully believed they held in their hands an abso¬ 
lute antidote to the bites of venomous serpents. Sir Joseph Fay- 
rer and numerous observers have found it entirely useless in cobra 
poisoning, and Mitchell states that as a stimulant it is far inferior 
to alcohol. 
It is only fair to Dr. Halford to state that he reports a number 
of apparently authentic cases of snake bite in which the patients 
