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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    patches or lings with white borders. The iiead marking very peculiar double V shaped mark, the angle directed between the nostrils3 interstitial coloration, yellowish brown, belly white, and with brown or amber spots 3 eyes, large, pupils erect, irides yellow 3 body, stout and compressed laterally 3 poison fangs, large and recurved, size about half an inch. The length of snake was 3 feet 5 inches, and from these characters it was identified to be the chain viper (Duboia Rimsellii, Gray), the most venomous of Indian vipers. The total quantity of the antidote in this case administered was only 110 minims of a one in 120 solution of strychnine acetas, or l^ths of a grain of that drug. Considering the extremely venom- ous nature of the snake and the large quantities of strychnine required in some of the previously reported cases of echis and bungarus bites, the quantity used seems disproportional, but this evidently is explained by the fact that only one of the fangs perforated deeply, and at the back of the foot, probably struck the bone before entering to its full length, the snake thus failing to impart the full quantity of venom at its disposal. The chief interest of Dr. Banerjee’s cases centres in the fact that they are mostly viper-bites. They prove conclusively, as do Feok- tistow’s experiments on the lower animals, that the theory of viper- poison being a blood poison, as asserted in all works on the subject, is not tenable and must be abandoned. If it effected changes in the blood, incompatible with life, strychnine, acting solely on the nerve- centres, could not possibly obliterate these changes within a few hours or even days On the other hand the successful treatment of bungarus bite with strychnine places it beyond doubt that cobra- poison will also yield to it, if fearlessly and vigorously applied. It is most gratifying to the writer to know from good authority that Sir Joseph Fayrcr, the President of the Medical Board at the India office, has recommended to the English Government the adoption of the strychnine treatment of snakebite in India, and that this Adoption will not be subject once more to the doubtful result of experiments on the lower animals, which, according to newspaper reports, were con