The trials were made only on small animals, but in each case the alleged remedy proved inefficacious. The experimenters, however, think that it would be unsafe to reject the _Simaba cedron_ as an antidote because it here failed, inasmuch as death followed so rapidly that there was small opportunity for its action. It is not until it shall have been tried and have failed upon stronger animals, that, in the face of the experience of the Indians in hot climates, it should be repudiated. The remedy was applied in the form of an infusion poured down the throat of the bitten animal as quickly as possible after the stroke, and of the moistened powder applied to the wound. It seems to me worthy of consideration whether, in the light of what Bruce says of the Nubians, a washing of the body with the infusion, or an imbibition of it, or both, _before_ the serpent's attack, might not be more efficacious as a preventive either of the bite or of its results, than its administration afterwards as a cure. Whatever be the substance with which the Nubians wash themselves, it seems to communicate to the body some quality, perhaps of odour, which repels and sickens serpents. Now, this may reside in the intense bitterness of the _Simarubaceæ_; and it would be worth while to try whether a rattlesnake or a puff-adder would strike a guinea-pig that had just been bathed in an infusion of the _Simaba_, or to which a dose of the same had just been administered, and if so, whether the bite then would be fatal. Even if these experiments yielded no positive result, it would still be open to consider whether the lapse of time, or a long sea-voyage, or exposure to our moist climate, may not have deprived the powdered root of the plant of antitoxic properties which it may have possessed when freshly prepared in its native region. Tschudi, whose researches into the natural history of Peru are replete with interesting and valuable information, has some observations on the native remedies for serpent-bites which I will cite, prefacing the extract with a graphically terrible picture from his pen of the venomous reptiles themselves:--