It is said that Dr. A. Calmette, director of the
Pasteur Insti- tute of Lille, has discovered a cure for the bite of poisonous snakes, which he obtains as follows : He inoculates horses with the poison of different kinds of poisonous snakes in very small quantities, gradually increasing the amount injected as the protective influence of the earlier inoculations begins to. take effect. In this way the animals are prepared to bear doses which would prove fatal if used in the earlier injections. When they have thus acquired an immunity against the ordinary snake-bite, blood is taken from them and the serum, or watery part of the blood, is separated from its other con- stituent elements, and this serum is injected either under the skin or, if the case is urgent, directly into the veins of the- animal to be cured, or to be protected against snake-bite. According to the statement given in Monday's Times, rabbits poisoned by snake-bite and inoculated with this serum re- covered, while other rabbits inoculated with exactly the same quantity, died within sixteen or seventeen minutes. That is all very impressive, so far as it goes. But, at least in relation to the "protective" uses of this serum, we should like to know how far the inoculation produces any further effects on the organisations so treated, especially in the case of man. We cannot ask the rabbits whether they are aware of any per- manent change in their bodily feelings after receiving the serum into their veins ; but we could put this question to human patients, if there are any who are willing to be so " protected" against merely possible snake-bites; and it would be very desirable to put it. It is not easy to imagine that an inoculation which so changes the character of the blood as to. confer immunity against formidable snake-bites may not have other very serious effects which would not be quite so pleasant.
The growing passion for transforming the blood by all kinds of animal germs into blood by no means entirely human, seems to us a very unsafe one, and we should like to know much more about the general effects of these powerful yeasts before we should choose to recommend them.
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