THE CURE OF SNAKE BITE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXIX, Issue 11878, 1 February 1902, Page 2 (Supplement)

THE CURE OF SNAKE BITE.

FURTHER SUCCESSES OF THE CALMETTE REMEDY".

Paris, December 18. In an article just published on the prevention of deaths from snake bites, M. Henri de Parville , cites several well-authenticated cases in which the anti-venomous serum of l)r. Calmette, head of the Pasteur Institute at Lille, has been the means of saving life. Dr. Calmette it may be remembered was himself bitten on the hand by a cobra when experimenting in his laboratory a short time ago and only' escaped death by the application of the serum discovered by himself. A mining engineer in a letter to the writer from Australia also relates how he was bitten ihi October by a deadly serpent and an hour afterwards was fast losing consciousness when the timely intervention of Dr. Calmette's antidote brought him back to life.

But the most striking testimony to the value of the French professor's serum comes from India, where a woman was recently bitten by a venomous snak:. of unusually large dimensions and cured when she was at the point of death. To prepare the serum the venom has to bo procured from living serpents, and it was while engaged in this risky '. operation that Dr. Calmette came near losing his life. The Pasteur Institutes at Lille and Paris forward consignments of the saving serum to all countries in which venomous serpents are found.