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  VENOMS

  VENOMOUS ANIMALS
  AND ANTIVENOMOUS
  SERUM-THERAPEUTICS


  BY

  A. CALMETTE, M.D.

  Corresponding Member of the French Institute and of the Academy
  of Medicine, Director of the Pasteur Institute, Lille


  TRANSLATED BY ERNEST E. AUSTEN, F.Z.S.


  NEW YORK
  WILLIAM WOOD AND COMPANY
  MDCCCCVIII




PREFACE TO ENGLISH EDITION.


Mr. E. E. Austen, of the British Museum, has been good enough to
undertake the translation of my book on “Venoms.” For the presentation
of my work to the scientific public in an English dress I could not
have hoped to find a more faithful interpreter. To him I express my
liveliest gratitude for the trouble that he has so kindly taken, and
I thank Messrs. John Bale, Sons and Danielsson for the care they have
bestowed upon the preparation of this edition.

  A. CALMETTE, M.D.

  _Institut Pasteur de Lille,
  June 17, 1908._




INTRODUCTION TO FRENCH EDITION.


In the month of October, 1891, during the rains, a village in the
vicinity of Bac-Lieu, in Lower Cochin-China, was invaded by a swarm of
poisonous snakes belonging to the species known as _Naja tripudians_,
or Cobra-di-Capello. These creatures, which were forced by the deluge
to enter the native huts, bit four persons, who succumbed in a few
hours. An Annamese, a professional snake-charmer in the district,
succeeded in catching nineteen of these cobras and shutting them up
alive in a barrel. M. Séville, the administrator of the district,
thereupon conceived the idea of forwarding the snakes to the newly
established Pasteur Institute at Saigon, to which I had been appointed
as director.

At this period our knowledge of the physiological action of venoms was
extremely limited. A few of their properties alone had been brought
to light by the works of Weir Mitchell and Reichard in America, of
Wall and Armstrong in India and England, of A. Gautier and Kaufmann in
France, and especially by Sir Joseph Fayrer’s splendidly illustrated
volume (“The Thanatophidia of India”), published in London in 1872.

An excellent opportunity was thus afforded to me of taking up a study
which appeared to possess considerable interest on the morrow of the
discoveries of E. Roux and Behring, with reference to the toxins of
diphtheria and tetanus, and I could not allow the chance to escape.
For the last fifteen years I have been occupied continuously with
this subject, and I have published, or caused to be published by my
students, in French, English, or German scientific journals, a fairly
large number of memoirs either on venoms and the divers venomous
animals, or on antivenomous serum-therapeutics. The collation of these
papers is now becoming a matter of some difficulty, and it appeared to
me that the time had arrived for the production of a monograph, which
may, I hope, be of some service to all who are engaged in biological
research.

       *       *       *       *       *

_Antivenomous serum-therapy_, which my studies, supplemented by those
of Phisalix and Bertrand, Fraser, George Lamb, F. Tidswell, McFarland,
and Vital Brazil, have enabled me to establish upon scientific bases,
has now entered into current medical practice. In each of the countries
in which venomous bites represent an important cause of mortality in
the case of human beings and domestic animals, special laboratories
have been officially organised for the preparation of antivenomous
serum. All that remains to be done is to teach its use to those who are
ignorant of it, especially to the indigenous inhabitants of tropical
countries, where snakes are more especially formidable and deadly.
This book will not reach such people as these, but the medical men,
naturalists, travellers, and explorers to whom it is addressed will
know how to popularise and apply the information that it will give
them.

I firmly believe also that physiologists will read the book with
profit. Its perusal will perhaps suggest to them the task of
investigating a host of questions, which are still obscure, relating
to toxins, their mode of action upon the different organisms, and
their relations to the antitoxins. There is no doubt that in the study
of venoms a multitude of workers will, for a long time to come, find
material for the exercise of their powers of research.

       *       *       *       *       *

At the moment of completing this work I would like to be allowed to
cast a backward glance upon the stage that it marks in my scientific
career, and to express my heartfelt gratitude to my very dear master
and friend, Dr. Émile Roux, to whom I owe the extreme gratification
of having been able to dedicate my life to the study of experimental
science, and of having caused to germinate, grow, and ripen a few of
the ever fertile seeds that he sows broadcast around him.

       *       *       *       *       *

I am especially grateful to those of my pupils, C. Guérin, A. Deléarde,
F. Noc, L. Massol, Bernard, and A. Briot, who have helped me in my
work, while showering upon me the marks of their confidence, esteem,
and attachment; to my former chiefs, colleagues, and friends of the
Colonial Medical Staff, Drs. G. Treille, Kermorgant, Paul Gouzien,
Pineau, Camail, Angier, Lépinay, Lecorre, Gries, Lhomme, and Mirville;
and to my numerous foreign or French correspondents, George Lamb,
Semple, C. J. Martin, Vital Brazil, Arnold, de Castro, Simon Flexner,
Noguchi, P. Kyes, Morgenroth, J. Claine, Piotbey, and R. P. Travers,
several of whom have come to work in my laboratory, or have obligingly
procured for me venoms and venomous animals.

I have experienced at the hands of a large number of our ministers,
consuls, or consular agents abroad the most cordial reception on
repeatedly addressing myself to them in order to obtain the papers or
information of which I was in need. It is only right for me to thank
them for it, and to acknowledge the trouble that M. Masson has most
kindly taken in publishing this book.

  A. CALMETTE.

  _Institut Pasteur de Lille,
  March 10, 1907._




TABLE OF CONTENTS.


PART I.

                                                                  Page

  CHAP. I.--I. General notes on poisonous animals                    1

           II. General classification of poisonous snakes. Their
                 anatomo-physiological characters                    3

  CHAP. II.--Habits of poisonous snakes.