2
from the symptoms, as to the nature of the venom which has been injected.
He would have, then, either to use one of the antitoxic sera at haphazard,
or to inject the whole of them at once. For obvious reasons it is certain that
neither of these methods would recommend itself either to the patient or to
the medical man as a sound and reliable therapeutical measure.
The difficulty might be got over in one of two ways. It might be got
over either by immunising animals against the venom of each species of snake
separately and then mixing the various sera procured in this way, or by
immunising, if this were possible, animals with a mixture made up of definite
proportions of each venom: It is, however, premature to speculate further in this
direction, before we have shown that it is necessary to overcome the difficulty,
and before many preliminary experiments have been made. Nevertheless, the
considerations put forward above show the great practical importance of the
question under discussion.
The theoretical aspect of the problem is of no less importance and interest
than its practical aspect. Calmette 2 has all along held that all snake venoms
are alike in physiological action, and that, in consequence, the serum which he
sends out from Lille, prepared as it is chiefly with cobra venom, is active against
the venoms of all species of snakes. These sweeping statements of Calmette
have not stood the light of further and more recent research. They have now
been shown to require considerable modification. In the first place, I have
shown in a series 3 of papers that the venom of the cobra differs from that of
the daboia in every detail of physiological action. In the second place, in
Australia it was first shown by Martin 4 of Melbourne that Calmette's serum was
unable to preserve animals against injections of the poison of the tiger
snake (Hoplocephalus curtus). Subsequent experiments 5 in Sydney have de-
monstrated a like fact as far as the poisons of other Australian snakes are con-
cerned. In India, also, along with Dr. Hanna 6 I have conclusively shown that,
while Calmette's serum is active for cobra venom, it has no neutralising effect
for the venom of Daboia Russellii. When we consider, as I have stated above,
that the venom of the cobra has in every respect a different physiological action
from the poison of the daboia, such a result was only to be expected. It is
evident, therefore, that if it were definitely shown that antivenomous sera were
specific, Calmette's assertions would be conclusively disproved.
The question under discussion is further of theoretical interest in view of
Martin's hypothesis,7 t h a t a l l v e n o m s c o n t a i n t w o o r m o r e p o i s o n o u s p r o t e i d s ,
and that in the varying proportions of these in venoms from different species of
snakes may be found the explanation of the different effects which follow the
inoculation of the serveral poisons. It is unnecessary here to enter into the facts
I have elsewhere 8 put forward which go to disprove this theory. It is sufficient
to point out that, should it be shown that the serum of an animal immunised
with the venom of one species of snake was quite inactive against the venoms