Outside of the transfusion of blood, for which there are strong reasons for believing would be attended with happy results, the sole remedies available in serpent poisoning are measures looking to the prompt cutting off of the circulation of the affected part, and the direct stimulation of the heart's action and the respiratory organs, until such a time as Nature shall have eliminated all toxical evidences; and these must necessarily be mechanical. Alcoholic stimulants are available only as they act mechanically in sustaining cardiac and pulmonary activity, and where their free use is prolonged efficacy is quickly exhausted, and they tend rather to hasten a fatal result. They are devoid of the slightest antidotal properties, and in no way modify the activity of the venom; and an intoxicated person, so far from enjoying the immunity with which he is popularly credited, is far more apt to succumb to the virus than him of unfuddled intellect. The reasons are obvious. Theoretically, for purely physiological and therapeutic reasons _amyl nitrite_ should be of incalculable value, though I have no knowledge of its use in this connection, since its vapor when inhaled is a most powerful stimulator of cardiac action, and when administered by the mouth it is unapproached in its control of spasmodically contracted vessels and muscles. The relief its vapor affords in the collapse of chloroform anaesthesia, in which dissolution is imminent from paralyzed heart's action, is instantaneous, and its effect upon the spasmodic and suffocative sensations of hydrophobia are equally prompt. Moreover, without further discussing its physiological functions, it is the nearest approach to an antidote to certain zymotic poisons, and especially valuable in warding off and aborting the action of the ferment that gives rise to pertussis, or whooping cough. _Iodide of ethyl_ is another therapeutical measure that is worthy of consideration; and _iodoform_ in the treatment of the sequelae incident to recovery.