e is, however,
not a single case on record, in which death took place under
strychnine-convulsions. All the patients died under palpable symptoms of
snakebite-poisoning. As these symptoms have now been proven beyond all
doubt to yield to strychnine, when properly administered, the inference
that it was not so administered in the cases referred to becomes not
only justifiable, but unavoidable. In one case only, that of a child of
tender years, blood was vomited so copiously that death may be ascribed
to that cause and the snake-poison combined, but in all the other six
fatal ones, mostly of children, it was undoubtedly due to the
snake-poison not being properly checked by the antidote. The gentlemen
who officiated on these occasions were evidently not Banerjees, but the
very reverse of their Indian confrere. They do not appear to have had
very clear ideas of the absolute antagonism existing between the two
poisons, and entirely disregarded the most important point in the
treatment, namely, the necessity of administering the antidote until it
has completely subdued the snake poison, regardless of the quantity that
may be required for that purpose. In a few instances the treatment was
correct enough at first, but when, as is often the case, a relapse took
place after the patient had apparently recovered, the large quantity of
the antidote already administered appears to have given rise to the
erroneous notion that it would be useless to resort to it a second time,
and thus, through this error and the fear of strychnine-convulsions, the
patients were allowed to die. In most of the six fatal cases collected
by the writer, however, the doses and total quantities given were
altogether inadequate to cope with the poison. They did probably more
harm than good, for the snake-poison when only partially checked by
strychnine seems to renew its onslaught on the nerve-cells even more
insidiously than when not interfered with at all. Convulsions also, as
shown in cases, are sometimes called forth by this timid use of the
antidote.

A few instances will show the correctness of these observations. Thus an
old woman sleeping in a shed is awakened at daylight by a tiger snake
having fastened on to her wrist. She pulls off the snake, alarms the
neighbours, and a doctor, living only a mile away from the place, is
sent for. He appears on the scene four hours afterwards, when complete
coma and collapse has set in, makes two injections of gr.