SNAKE BITE AND ITS ANTIDOTE. 
555 
drop doses might be given every two hours, or, if at hand, a few 
drops of nitrate of amyl might be inhaled. Everything failing 
it might be worth while to attempt artificial respiration, in the 
hope that if life could be prolonged the system might throw off 
the poison, as it has been shown by the Indian Snake Commission 
that the action of venom is actually delayed by this method. In 
one case mentioned by Vincent Richards J of a grain of cobra 
venom was injected into a dog. “ It took four hours and ten 
minutes before the animal appeared to be dying, until artificial 
respiration was resorted to. In four minutes more in the absence 
of this system this animal’s heart would have ceased to beat and 
somatic death been completed. But by its steady application life 
was extended to forty-one hours and fifty-two minutes. In a des¬ 
perate case there should be no hesitation in trying the effect of 
artificial respiration. 
Before leaving the subject of snake bites it seems proper to 
allude to a matter which of late has received some little attention, 
viz., the preventive inoculation of serpent venom to prevent dan¬ 
ger from bites, and while the writer does not commit himself to 
the theory he believes it may be worthy of serious consideration. 
As has already been stated in this paper, the Ann Arbor experi¬ 
ments showed conclusively that after a time with repeated inocu¬ 
lation of venom the animals experimented upon seemed to be 
much less susceptible to its effect, and quite recently an individual 
has been visiting the principal cities claiming an immunity from 
snake bite, on account of an inoculation performed on him by 
some South American Indians, and offering to have the matter 
tested upon a large dog, which had also been inoculated. It has 
been stated that in Philadelphia these experiments were suc¬ 
cessful. Tschudi informs us that some of the South Ameri¬ 
can Indians are said to acquire an immunity from snake bite, 
having been previously inoculated, but the process has to be re¬ 
peated from time to time. In this connection the following ex¬ 
tract is given from the Veterinarian Lond., 1887, LX., 565, as 
it seems to bear the impress of truthfulness. “ Three of the 
oxen were bitten by snakes. One of the bushmen undertook to 
cure them, and taking a knife made one or two slight incisions 
