ntil death of the
part may ensue. The vital centers in the brain controlling the heart
and breathing apparatus, are paralyzed by the poison. There is often
drowsiness and stupor, and the breathing is labored and the pulse weak
and irregular, with faintness and cold sweats.

=Treatment.=--The treatment consists first in keeping the poison out
of the general blood stream. With this purpose in view a handkerchief,
piece of cotton clothing, string, or strap should be immediately wound
about the bitten limb above the wound, between it and the heart. This
will retard absorption of the poison only for a time; it is said
twenty-five minutes. The knife is the most effective means of removing
the poison by making an oval cut on each side of the wound so that the
two incisions meet and remove all the flesh below and around the
wound. Bleeding should be encouraged to drain out the poison. The skin
containing the wound may be lifted up, and the whole wound cut out by
one snip of the scissors where this is practicable.

Some advocate burning out the wound with a red-hot wire, or darning
needle, instead of cutting, but the treatment is less effective and
more painful. Rambaud forbids burning. As to the general condition: if
stupor is a prominent symptom the patient must be made to move about
and exercise to keep alive his nerve centers. Otherwise one
tablespoonful of whisky may be given in half a cup of hot water
hourly, to sustain the weakened heart and respiration until recovery
ensues.

The most effective treatment, according to Dr. George Rambaud,
Director of the Pasteur Institute of New York City, is thorough
washing of the wound (after it has been opened with the knife) with
freshly prepared solution of chloride of lime, in the proportion of
one part of lime to sixty of water. The burning of a wound is bad
practice. If necessary, chloride-of-lime solution should be injected
into the tissues around the wound. One about to go into a place where
the most venomous snakes are found should inject into himself a dose
of Calmette's antivenomous serum every two or three weeks as a means
of prevention. If the serum is used, whisky should not be given in the
treatment of one who has been bitten, for the anti-venene is a
powerful cell stimulator.

Calmette, the Director of the Pasteur Institute in Lille, France,
several years ago discovered antivenomous serum. That serum is
efficient for the bites of most of the venomous snakes of diff