imaginary blood changes
produced by the subtle poison, and alleged to have been discovered by
the willing, but frequently deceiving microscope. Even bacteriology has
been laid under service and innocent leucocytes have been converted
under the microscope into deadly germs, introduced by the reptile,
multiplying with marvellous rapidity in the blood of its victims,
appropriating to themselves all the available oxygen and producing
carbonic acid, as the saccharomyces does in alcoholic fermentation.
Others again, and among them those supposed to be the highest
authorities on the subject now living, divide the honors between nerve
and blood. Some snakes they allege are nerve-poisoners others as surely
poison the blood, but with one solitary exception they assume the
terminations of the motor-nerves and not the centres to be affected.

Thus then with regard to theories we have hitherto had "confusion worse
confounded," and as with theories so it has been with antidotes. They
were proposed in numbers, but only to be given up again, some intended
to decompose and destroy the subtle poison in the system, others to
counteract its action on the system with that action unknown. It is
scarcely too much to assert that there are but few chemicals and drugs
in the materia medica that have not been tried as antidotes in
experiments on animals and dozens upon dozens that have been tried in
vain on man.

The reasons for this somewhat chaotic state of our science on a subject
of so much interest to mankind are various. The countries of Europe, in
which scientific research is most keenly pursued, have but few
indigenous, and these comparatively harmless snakes. The best scientific
talent has, therefore, only exceptionally been brought to bear on the
subject. In those countries on the other hand in which venomous snakes
abound and opportunities for observing the poison-symptoms on man are
more plentiful, the observing element has been comparatively deficient.

A still more potent source of failure must be sought in the faulty
methods of research pursued by most investigators. Experiments on
animals were far too much resorted to, and their frequently misleading
results accepted as final, whilst observations on man did not receive
the attention their importance demanded.

In the investigation of this subject the first desideratum was no doubt
to find the correct theory of the action of snake poison and to define
the law governing that act