The cover image was created by the transcriber and is placed in the public domain.
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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 Academyof Medicine, Director of the Pasteur Institute, Lille
TRANSLATED BY ERNEST E. AUSTEN, F.Z.S.
NEW YORKWILLIAM WOOD AND COMPANYMDCCCCVIII
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PREFACE TO ENGLISH EDITION.
Mr. E. E. Austen, of the British Museum, has beengood enough to undertake the translation of my book on“Venoms.” For the presentation of my work to thescientific public in an English dress I could not have hopedto find a more faithful interpreter. To him I express myliveliest gratitude for the trouble that he has so kindlytaken, and I thank Messrs. John Bale, Sons and Danielssonfor the care they have bestowed upon the preparation ofthis edition.
Institut Pasteur de Lille,A. Calmette, M.D.June 17, 1908.iv
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INTRODUCTION TO FRENCH EDITION.
In the month of October, 1891, during the rains, a villagein the vicinity of Bac-Lieu, in Lower Cochin-China, wasinvaded by a swarm of poisonous snakes belonging to thespecies known as Naja tripudians, or Cobra-di-Capello.These creatures, which were forced by the deluge to enterthe native huts, bit four persons, who succumbed in a fewhours. An Annamese, a professional snake-charmer in thedistrict, succeeded in catching nineteen of these cobras andshutting them up alive in a barrel. M. Séville, the administratorof the district, thereupon conceived the idea offorwarding the snakes to the newly established PasteurInstitute at Saigon, to which I had been appointed asdirector.
At this period our knowledge of the physiological actionof venoms was extremely limited. A few of their propertiesalone had been brought to light by the works of WeirMitchell and Reichard in America, of Wall and Armstrongin India and England, of A. Gautier and Kaufmann inFrance, and especially by Sir Joseph Fayrer’s splendidlyillustrated volume (“The Thanatophidia of India”), publishedin London in 1872.
An excellent opportunity was thus afforded to me ofvitaking up a study which appeared to possess considerableinterest on the morrow of the discoveries of E. Roux andBehring, with reference to the toxins of diphtheria andtetanus, and I could not allow the chance to escape. Forthe last fifteen years I have been occupied continuouslywith this subject, and I have published, or caused to bepublished by my students, in French, English, or Germanscientific journals, a fairly large number of memoirs eitheron venoms and the divers venomous animals, or on antivenomousserum-therapeutics. The collation of thesepapers is now