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A. Mueller

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Title: On Snake-Poison: its Action and its Antidote

Author: A. Mueller

Release Date: June 23, 2010 [EBook #32947]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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[Illustration]

ON

SNAKE-POISON.

ITS ACTION

AND

ITS ANTIDOTE.

BY

A. MUELLER, M.D.

SYDNEY:

L. BRUCK, MEDICAL PUBLISHER,
13 CASTLEREAGH STREET.
1893.

SYDNEY:
WEBDALE, SHOOSMITH & CO., PRINTERS,
117 CLARENCE STREET.

1893.

PREFACE.

Since the method of treating snakebite-poisoning by hypodermic
injections of strychnine, discovered by the writer and published but a
few years ago, has already been adopted by the medical profession
throughout the Australian colonies, and practised even by laymen in
cases of urgency with much success, it has been repeatedly suggested to
him that the subject calls for further elucidation at his hands; that
the morbid processes engendered by the snake venom and the _modus
operandi_ of the antidote should be explained by him in a manner
satisfying the demands of science, and at the same time within the grasp
of the intelligent, moderately educated layman. When the latter, in a
case of pressing emergency and in the absence of medical aid, is called
upon to administer a potent drug in heroic doses, the aggregate of which
would be attended by serious consequences in the absence of the deadly
ophidian virus, an intelligent insight alone into the process he is
about to initiate will give him that decision and promptitude of action,
on the full exercise of which on his part it may depend whether, within
a few hours, a valuable and to him probably dear life will be saved or
lost.

The foregoing applies, not to Australia only, but to all other countries
infested by venomous snakes. The introduction of the wri