15 to 20
minutes need to elapse, after the first injection, before further
measures can be decided on. If the poisoning symptoms show no abatement
by that time, a second injection of the same strength should be made
promptly, and unless after it a decided improvement is perceptible, a
third one after the same interval. As the action of strychnine when
applied as antidote is not cumulative, no fear needs to be entertained
of violent effects suddenly breaking out after these large doses
repeated at short intervals. They are, so to say, swallowed up by the
snake-poison and remain latent except in counteracting the latter. This
has now been proven abundantly by scores of qualified observers in all
parts of Australia, and still more by Banerjee in India. No hesitation,
therefore, should be felt by medical men in other snake-infested
countries to adopt the Australian treatment. It is seldom that more than
half a grain of strychnine administered in 16m. doses of liq. strychniae
is required here to effectually counteract the venom and place its
intended victim out of danger. Ligature and excision of the bitten skin
have usually been practised and much of the poison eliminated before the
antidote is applied. Our snakes, however, as already pointed out, with
their shorter and merely grooved fangs, do not perforate the cellular
tissue to such depth nor instil as large a quantity of poison as the
cobras, kraits and vipers of India or the rattlesnake of America, all
having perforated and much longer fangs and much more productive poison
glands. Even if after the bite of a vigorous cobra, for instance, a
ligature has been applied and the bitten part deeply excised, a
comparatively large quantity of poison will probably be absorbed
requiring much larger quantities of the antidote, perhaps grains of it,
to effect a cure.

If under the influence of these large doses the symptoms abate, or if
the latter are comparatively mild from the first, smaller doses of
strychnine should be injected, say from 1/15th to 1/10th of a grain, but
under all circumstances the rule that, distinct strychnia symptoms must
be produced before the injections are discontinued, should never be
departed from. This rule is a perfectly safe one, for its observance
entails no danger, a few muscular spasms or even slight tetanic
convulsions being easily subdued and harmless as compared with that
most insidious condition exemplified in case No. 1, cited below, the
fir