It is superfluous to enter into a criticism of the treatment of snakebite until recently in vogue, for, with the exception of the local one by ligature and excision, it stands self-condemned by its complete inefficiency. It may be summed up as a vain attempt to stem the collapse invariably attending snakebite by the administration of stimulants, such as alcohol, ether, ammonia, &c. The attempt is vain, for a person in collapse from snakebite cannot be stimulated by any of these remedies, since neither the heart nor the nerve centres respond to them in the slightest degree, as they do in the absence of snake-poison, the only one that has any effect at all in slight cases being ammonia. But the attempt is not only in vain, it is highly injurious, especially if made with the usual large doses of alcohol, for, in addition to the latter not having the slightest influence on the snake-poison and its baneful effects, they act as an anæsthetic and thus add to the existing depression, besides increasing the tendency to internal hæmorrhage. It might, under these circumstances, have been expected that any new method of treating snakebite, based on scientific grounds and holding out a sure prospect of success, would be hailed with pleasure, and that conservatism, opposing the new simply on account of its newness, would refrain from its usual tactics in a case where there was really nothing to conserve. But this was not to be, and strange, indeed, it would have been if the writer had escaped the opposition which is almost invariably offered to the discoverer. It appears to be one of the laws of human evolution, wisely designed to prevent precipitate advance, that every new discovery must run the gauntlet of men whose mission it is to act as brakes on the wheels of progress. Of the opposition which has been offered to the strychnine treatment it would, therefore, be folly to complain, but just cause of complaint is furnished by the unscientific attitude which was assumed from the very first and has been maintained throughout by its opponents.