ote is proof only of the fact of neither
antidote nor snake-poison having killed the patients, who, probably,
might have recovered if left to themselves. This may be strict logic,
but common sense replies to it that if recovery takes place after proper
administration of the antidote in cases which, according to all our
previous experience, would have ended fatally, it is not illogical to
assume that antidote and recovery stand in the relation of cause and
effect. This sceptical attitude of the scientific mind can justly be
maintained only with regard to cases limited in number and in which the
symptoms left room for doubt as to their final result, but in view of
the formidable and constantly increasing records of cures from snakebite
during the last three years, it is, to say the least of it,
unreasonable.

The demand for experiments on animals, in proof of the correctness of
his theory, the writer does not feel called upon to satisfy, for, apart
from the theory proving itself by explaining all the symptoms the
snake-poison produces, it has also stood the test of practical
application. It is proven to be correct by the success of the antidote
to which it led, and which is the logical outcome of it. After finally
attaining a goal one has striven for, it is quite unnecessary to retrace
one's steps with a view of ascertaining whether the road that has led up
to it is the right and proper one.

By a fortuitous concurrence of circumstances, however, even this demand
for experiments shall be satisfied in these pages. The writer published
his theory of the action of snake-poison in May, 1888, after having
practised the strychnine treatment for some years and thoroughly
satisfied himself of its efficacy. In the latter part of 1888 accounts
of Feoktistow's researches reached this country. His final conclusions
to the effect that snake-poison is solely a nerve poison, that it does
not destroy protoplasm, and has no effect whatever on the blood to which
its destructive potency on animal life can be ascribed, were in
complete harmony with the writer's views, in fact, a re-statement of his
theory. It was a strange coincidence, or whatever it may be called,
that, independent of each other, at almost opposite parts of the globe,
and by opposite methods, we had arrived at almost identical conclusions.
Those of Feoktistow were drawn from 400 elaborate experiments on
animals, both vertebrates and invertebrates, made in the laboratory of