second lesson it conveys is a new one, even to the writer. From the
fact of one strychnine injection removing all poison-symptoms early on
Monday, but the free use of the antidote failing entirely to have this
effect on Monday night and on Tuesday, we are warranted to draw the
conclusion that the antidote can only be relied on within the first 24
hours after the bite; and that, after this period, the snake-poison
produces organic changes in the affected nerve-cells, preventing their
depressed functional activity from being restored by the antidote.
Further observations, of course, are required to confirm these
conclusions. Their correctness, however, appears to be borne out by the
fact observed by the writer, that the larger domestic animals, who
sometimes linger on for days after being bitten by a snake, usually
recover under the strychnine treatment if it is applied immediately or
soon after a bite, but die when found and treated in an advanced stage
of the malady.

That the grave kidney complication, checking the elimination of the
poison from the system, militated against recovery in this case, and
greatly influenced the singular course of the poisoning process, cannot
be doubted.

[Illustration]

CONCLUSION.

In the little work submitted herewith to the medical profession and the
general public, for both of whom it is intended, the author may justly
claim to have solved the difficult and long-standing problem of
snake-poison. We have at last a correct theory of its action, and, what
is of more importance to the public, we have an effective antidote.
These facts, being as fully established in these pages as any scientific
facts can be, the most exacting and even captious criticism will not
upset, nor can further research add anything very material to the
writer's deductions and their final result.

In order to show how an obscure Australian country practitioner
succeeded in a discovery, for which all his predecessors in this field
of research had laboured in vain, it will be necessary in conclusion to
give a short history of the discovery as by slow degrees it has
originated and matured in the writer's mind, who during the last 35
years with respect to this subject had followed the advice which
Schiller gives in his grand poem, "Die Glocke:"--

Wer etwas Treffliches leisten will,
Haett' gern was Grossesgeboren,
Der sammle still und unerschlafft
Im kleinsten Punkte die groesste Kraft