ntil he had witnessed a
case of brown snakebite cured by it or reported on good authority.
This desire he had quickly gratified, and by a strange fatality in
his own person. Whilst taking his children for a walk in the bush
a few weeks afterwards he stepped aside the path to pluck a flower
from a bush, and in doing so was bitten on the leg by a vigorous
brown snake. He at once applied a ligature, and had the punctures
sucked by an aboriginal, but became comatose before he reached
home. Three medical men were summoned in haste, injected ammonia
into several veins, and finally had to resort to artificial
respiration, declaring the case a hopeless one. In this extremity
Mrs Johnstone rushed to a fourth one, who had seen Dr. Thwaites'
letter, and discussed its contents with her husband in her
presence. This gentleman--Dr. Garde--laid up in bed, quickly
furnished the lady with liq. strychniae, accompanied by the request
to his colleagues to inject it freely. She came back to her
husband's bedside, when artificial respiration was about to be
given up, but the very first injection rendered it no longer
necessary and two more restored Mr. Johnstone completely. Saving
the life of this highly respected and popular functionary, who was
the first in Queensland treated with the antidote, paved the way
for it in that colony, where it is most needed and is now highly
appreciated.

These five cases, thoroughly typical of the effects of strychnine
in snakebite, are almost in themselves sufficient to bear out the
correctness of the writer's deductions, but for the benefit of a
certain class of rigorously incredulous scientists, who would not
be satisfied with five cases, the writer submits 45 more and in
addition to these--last but not least--Dr. Bannerjee's eight
Indian cases. They are all well authenticated, being mostly taken
from the _Australasian Medical Gazette_ or from private notes, but
to avoid useless repetition the greater part of them will be
merely cited and only the more remarkable ones be given in detail.
Whether in the face of this formidable array of evidence that
blind incredulity and senseless opposition, usually blocking the
way of every new discovery, will at last give way, remains to be
seen. The writer has had his full share of them, and but for the
valuable aid he rec