On snake poison : its action and its antidote / by A. Mueller.

  • Mueller, A.
Date:
1893
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On snake poison : its action and its antidote / by A. Mueller. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    G4 snake-poison. They were evidently produced by the latter and quite on a par with those occasionally occurring in man before the strych- nine is administered, and almost invariably in dogs. As long as coma is present with other symptoms denoting the snake-poison to be in active operation, such convulsions rather call for the antidote, than contra indicate its use, for the strychnine never produces them until it has completely conquered the snake-poison, and even then they are always preceded by local spasms and never set in suddenly. Timid medical men, when administering the antidote and anxiously watching for the dreaded strychnine effects, are too apt to see them in the slightest irregular muscular action. Case 43, reported by Dr. Johnson, of Avoca, patient bitten by a tiger snake, was comatose, pulseless, with very shallow respiration, ifec., and restored by three injections of m. xvi., xv. and x. within less than three hours. Case 44.—Reported in Australian Journal of Pharmacy, from Tasmania, treated by Dr. Tofft, of Campbell Town. The report concludes : We have had some fatal cases of snakebite already this season, and the successful treatment in the above case has created a strong feeling in favour of strychnine in such emergencies. Cases 45 to 49.'—Reported by Dr. Alex. Barber to A.M. Gazette. He writes: “During the last year I treated four cases of snakebite successfully with strychnine. In one of these, a bite of a brown snake, I injected three doses of m. xx. each of liq. strych. P.B., in all over half a grain, in one hour.” Case 50.—Reported by Dr. Barrington, of Benalla (Vic.), bite of tiger snake, symptoms moderate. Completely removed in three hours by 57 minims of liq. strych. P. B.