PREFACE.
of innocent snakes, as has frequently been done, and thus prevent the unnecessary expenditure of the public funds.
The few brief suggestions concerning treatment, down to the end of the 7th paragraph, if adopted by the non-professional persons brought into contact with those who have been poisoned, might lead to the saving of much human life. Thus there is some reason for supposing that, if the ligatures and other means recommended were applied instantly after a person has been bitten, that the absorption of the poison would be prevented or materially lessened; and that the surgeon would be placed under favourable circumstances for combating the dreadful enemy he has been summoned to oppose. Another point is that, in all probability, the excisions that were formerly practised have neither been extensive nor deep enough. My confrère, Dr. Wall, has, I believe, undertaken some most interesting experiments on the point, with a view to determine the area over which the poison is diffused from an ordinary bite, in different regions of the body. I believe the result will go to prove the absolute necessity for far more extensive excisions than have hitherto been considered needful. The minor amputations of a toe or a finger, and the large and deep excisions recommended in other parts of the body, when promptly undertaken and executed are incomparably lesser evils than those which must be encountered if any dregs of the snake poison ale left behind to infect the blood, and eventually to cause almost certain death.
