st one treated with strychnine by the writer, who, having no
experience in the treatment, did not administer quite enough strychnine.
The patient, after apparently recovering from a moribund condition and
being able to walk and even to mount a horse, remained partly under the
influence of the poison and succumbed to it during sleep, when,
according to subsequent experience, one more injection would have saved
him.

The tendency to relapses is always great when much snake-poison has been
absorbed. Apparently yielding to the antidote for a time, the insidious
venom, after a shorter or longer interval, during which it appears to
have been conquered, all at once re-asserts its presence, and has to be
met by such fresh injections, regardless of the quantity of strychnine
previously administered, but the amount required in most relapses is not
a large one. The writer formerly inclined to the belief that the strain
thus put on the delicate nerve-cells would limit the usefulness of the
antidote to cases requiring not much above a grain. Knowing the Indian
snakes to impart to their victims such comparatively large quantities of
venom, he had strong misgivings as to his method standing the severe
test of Indian practice; and it was most fortunate for this method that
its first practical application in India was made by a gentleman who,
whilst thoroughly familiar with its principles and convinced of their
correctness, had the courage to apply them fearlessly by injecting what
to us Australians appear enormous quantities, ranging as they do up to
three and four grains per patient. Dr. Banerjee's eight cases, all
successful, and of which the most important one, relating to the much
and justly dreaded Duboia Russellii, was published in the November
number of the _Australasian Medical Gazette_, settled the treatment of
snakebite in India as well as elsewhere. If the poison of Bungarus
coeruleus, Echis carinata, and Duboia Russellii can be successfully
counteracted, and if for this purpose four grains of strychnine can be
injected with perfect impunity, it may be inferred with certainty that
the poison of the cobra, fer-de-lance, and the rattlesnake--in fact, of
any snake known to us will be found amenable to the antidote, and that,
if four grains can be injected with safety, we may venture on six and
eight grains, if they are required. In those cases only where the long
fangs of these snakes perforate into a vein, and a large quantity