“Cock’s flesh, applied while still warm, neutralises the venom of snakes. The brains of the bird, swallowed in wine, produce the same effect. The Parthians, for this purpose, make use of chicken’s brains. The fresh flesh of the pigeon and the swallow, and owls’ feet burned, are good against snake-bites. “If one has been bitten by a snake or by any venomous animal, another method of cure is to take salt fish and wine from time to time, so as to vomit in the evening. This remedy is chiefly efficacious against the bite of the _Chalcis_, _Cerastes_, _Seps_, _Elaps_ and _Dipsas_.” * * * * * In Equatorial America, and especially in India, a multitude of plants are credited with marvellous properties, which they possess only in the imagination of the snake-charmers or medicine-men by whom they are employed. None of them stand the test of experiment, any more than the more or less compound drugs, numbers of specimens of which from all sources have passed through my hands. It cannot, however, be denied that certain chemical substances, of well-defined composition, are very useful, not as physiological antidotes to venoms, but as agents for their modification or destruction in the poisoned wounds, when they have not yet been absorbed. In this way _permanganate of potash_, _chromic acid_, _chloride of gold_, and the _alkaline hypochlorites_, especially _hypochlorite of lime_, may be extremely useful under many circumstances. _Permanganate of potash_ was recommended in 1881 by Professor de Lacerda,[104] of Rio de Janeiro, as the result of experiments made by him with venoms of Brazilian snakes. When a few cubic centimetres of a 1 per cent. solution of permanganate of potash are quickly injected into the actual wound caused by the bite and around the point of inoculation, there can be no doubt that the venom not yet absorbed is destroyed. When mixed _in vitro_ with venom, permanganate renders the latter innocuous. Here, however, it is a case of actual destruction by direct contact. If we inject a lethal dose of venom into the right thigh of an animal, for example, and several cubic centimetres of permanganate solution into different parts of the body, or beneath the skin of the left thigh, neither the general intoxication nor the local effects of the venom are modified. The same may be said with regard to _chromic acid_ (1 per cent. solution), recommended by Kaufmann[105] for the bite of the common viper. No other effect is produced by a 1 per cent. solution of _chloride of gold_, or the _alkaline hypochlorites_, which I have shown to possess a strong oxidising action on the different venoms, even on those that are most rapidly diffusible, such as cobra-venom (see Chapter V.). They possess, however, owing to their slight causticity, the advantage of not producing severe local disorders, and in this respect they are to be preferred.