The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1897-11-14
GOES WITH |
,,vrRy yENoMOUs SNAKE is AN An
rIDOTE FOR ITS DEADLY BITE.
serpent's Bites Save Life-Prof. It.
H. fraser, of Edinburgh UNIVERSE
~. discovers It-Injected Beneath
the skin.

From the Pittsburg Dispatch.
University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh,
MT 09-After the most painstaking inves-
.ioeton and experiment I believe myself
.rstiied in saying that I have discovered
on absolute antidote for the bite of the
,rost deadly serpent. have also found
that the substance from which the anti
dote is secured is stronger and best in
tbe serpent whose bite is the most deadly.
Tho entidote is found in the bile of the
.ernent. To secure 1t it is necessary to iso-
late or separate the antidotal constituent
If the bile from the remainder Of the sub
stance found in a serpent's gall bladder
THE method of the administration of the
ertidote is that known as injection beneath
the skin, so that the antidote may not
roingle directly with the blood of the VIC
tim of snakebite, but rather be absorbed.
have made number of experiments
with the hillary secretion Of the Indian
and African cobras, than which no more
poisonous snakes exist The result of these
tests showed that the bile of venomous
eerpents is able, when mixed with the
venom of the same serpents, to prevent
what have heretofore been deadly doses
of the latter from producing death; and
that the bile is indeed so powerful an
agent in doing this that a quantity act
ually smaller than the quantity of the
venom may be sufficient for the purpose
1t need scarcely be added that the doses
OF bile thus shown to be sufficient repre-
sent only minute portions of the bile found
in the gall bladder of one Of the snakes
mentiohed as being utilized in the expert
ments.
These proof laid bare the certainly re-
markable fact that every venomous ser
pent has at it's disposal enough of bile to
prevent injury from venom introduced into
the blood in quantities many times great
er than the minimum dose of venom which
will produce death. The experiments L
have described were made by mixing to-
gether and leaving in contact ten MIN
utes a dose of venom with dose OF the
antldote constituent of the bile, each sub
stance having been dissolved in few
tenths of a cubic centimeter Of water. At
ter l had considered the substances had
remained a sufficient time to amalgamate,
injected the combination beneath the
elun of an animal selected for experiment
and waited for results
Ia every instance where a quantity OF
Lne df4ffG0tal solution greater III dLiOuAS
than the quantity OF venom was admin
istered the subject of the experiment re-
covered. 1t then occurred to me that pos
siby the bile of non-poisonous serpents,
as well as animals, might possess in linn
tied degree, at least, the antidote prop
critics which I had already discovered in
the bilical secretion of the snakes whose
bite caused death. 1t is a well-known
fact that all snakes harmless as well as
venomous, resist through their organism
the fatal action of all venoms that are
injected beneath their skins or directly
into their blood.
Various facts some of which are ana
tomical, tend to show that the harmless,
equally with the venomous serpents, pos
sess poison glands and secrete venom. The
former are harmless only in the sense that
they do not possess weapons of offense in
the form of poison fangs. Most probably,
therefore, the relative protection against
the poisonous action of venom introduced
into the blood, which is common to SER
pents. is dependent upon an effect pro-
duced upon them by the venom which they
all secrete although in the case of the
harmless serpents only in relatively small
quantities.
Experiments made with the bile of the
grass snake confirmed this supposition
When tested against the venom of the In
dian cobra it was found to possess cura-
essary to use a much larger quantity than
when the antidote was obtained from the
bile of the serpent which had also furnish
ed the venom. The smallest quantity of
the antidote gained from the bile of the
harmless serpent which it is necessary to
use is considerably larger than that from
the feeblest of the biles of venomous SER
pents although at that a very small guam
tty. The Bile of the OK is able to antag-
onize the fatal action of a serpents VEN
ON, it's anita gonizing power, however, be-
ing only about the one-seYenteth of that
of the strongest of the biles Of venomous
serpents which have been tested. 1t was
shown by other experiments that the bile
Of the rabbit and the guinea-pig also pos
sesses this anti-venomous property, and
also, in degree, which though feeble when
compared with the bile of venomous SER
penis, is yet in itself considerable.
Although the bile possesses much power
in antagonizing venom when the two sub
concentrating the antidotal constit-
uent of the latter-are mixed together, it
cannot be too distinctly stated that when
the antidote is administered after the
venom has been injected into the system,
such as in the case of a genuine snake
bite the quantity of the antldote re-
CURED is from 1900 to 1900 times greater
man when administered in the manner
ADOPTED for purposes of experiment.
Neither can the bile itself be used di-
rectly as some might believe without
careful study Of the question Although,
while in the alimentary canal bile is
hontoxie or antidotal. it is altogether diff
Ierent when it is injected under the skin
or into blood vessel The bile then
acts as poison, and If a dose of bile were
injected under the skin containing suf-
HC'ent quantity of the antl-venomous con-
sutuent to antagonize an ordinary dose
oi venom received half an hour pre-
Wousy the constituents of the bile, which
ure non-antidotal but at the same time
POISONOUS, might be so great in amount
Us TO produce death. Thus in an expert
neht made with African cobra bile, adj
mustered, in dose estimated to be suf-
rneIeht, thirty minutes after dose of CO.
oaa venom had been injected subcutane-
UIS'y the animal survived four days
whereas an animal used in an experiment
.muhout bile died in six hours. During the
t t"9 daN before death the animal which
t'au received both bile and venom exhibit.
~ symptoms, however, which were rather
IT'ose Of bile than of venom poisoning
- improbable, therefore that the bile
ais ~ natural form could be used as an
1t,a o. except by stomach administra-