FIGHT FOR LIFE

Hokitika Guardian, 24 January 1935, Page 5

FIGHT FOR LIFE

. c - A SCIENTIST’S SUFFERING

(United Preee A*>oe*ataun—by Electric Tel eg rap tu—Qopy rig hr.)

NEW YORK, Jan 21,

A dramatic story of' a scientist's sufferings since he inhated . dficd cobra venom three yea r s ago was told to the convention of the World Jfarcotic Defence Association by the present, who was explaining the absence of Dr A-Monae-Lessei', wiho was,- to have given an address. ,-t

Dr Monae-LesseT was born in the Isle of Man 69 yeare ago, and after going to school in, Manchester and studying on the Continent, became a naturalised American in 1922. While a surgeon with the American 'Red Cross in Cuba. •during' the .SpanishAmerican War, he encountered the case of a leper who had. apparently been cured after being bitten by a tarantula spider. .

This .'led Slim to . develop- the theory, mow well known, that the venom of certain insects and snakes might act: a* an anaesthetic. His research resulted in his appointment to the Pasteur Institute in Paris. Three years agio he ivas travelling '-from Geneva to Paris .when a fellow-passenger kicked his suitcase, which' burst open. A little box- of dried cobra venom fell on the floor of the carriage, and the powder Iwas. spilt. Fearing that it would endanger the lives of the other passengers, the scientist swept up the deadly stuff with ihis hands, and in doing so inhaled some. The venom changed the- chemical content of ihis blood, and ever since he has been fighting for his life, often in great pain, and has only been kept alive by constant b*ood infusions