A NEW CURE FOR SNAKE-BITES.

Lyttelton Times, Volume LIX, Issue 6856, 17 February 1883, Page 3

A NEW CURE FOR SNAKE-BITES.

(Land and Water.) All who are or hare been in danger from venomous snakes will be glad to hear of a new cure, which seems capable of very rapidly destroying the poison. An account of experiments by M. de Lacerda has recently been presented to the French Academy of Science by M. de Quatrefages, in which permanganate of petash has been bit upon and found perfectly successful' as an antidote to serpent poison (derived from the Brasilian Bothrops), whether injected beneath the skin or into the veins of dogs. The solution of permanganate of potash, diluted to the extent cf 1 to 100 with distilled water, was injected, in one series of experiments, within a minute or two of the injection of the poison, and in no cose did the ordinary consequences of the poison appear j while the venom at the same time was proved to be fully venomous by it« action on other dogs without the ad minis tra* tion of the antidote. In other oases, where the poison was injected into the veins of dogs, followed in half a minute by the antidote, ite consequences were arrested; while a still more striking result was the cure of dogs when already very seriously suffering from the effects of the poison. In two or three minutes the* worst consequences disappeared under the action of the permanganate, and the state of general prostration was recovered from in at most five-and-twenty minutes. This discovery will, no doubt, cause a fresh run on Condy’s fluid for tropical climates.