The chemical reagent most to be recommended is _hypochlorite of lime_, in a fresh solution of 2 grammes per cent., and containing about 90 c.c. of chlorine per 100 grammes. It immediately and surely destroys the venom by simple contact, and the chlorine gas that it gives off, owing to its great diffusibility, acts at a fairly long distance from the point of inoculation on the venom which is already beginning to be absorbed. Professor Halford, of Melbourne, advises the direct injection into the patient’s veins of from 10 to 20 drops of ammonia, diluted with an equal quantity of distilled water. This is a means of reviving nervous excitability in certain subjects at the commencement of intoxication; but torpor soon reappears, and, if the dose of venom inoculated is sufficient to cause death, a fatal ending takes place notwithstanding. Experimentally the effects of ammonia are _nil_. No better results are obtained by injections of strychnine, as recommended by Dr. Mueller, in Australia. Moreover, the statistics published by Raston Huxtable[106] positively condemn this therapeutic method. They show that, in 426 cases of snake-bite, out of 113 treated by strychnine 15 proved fatal, the ratio of mortality being 13·2 per cent., while the 313 cases not treated by strychnine only resulted in 13 deaths, or a mortality of 4·1 per cent. In the case of animals intoxicated by venom, injections of strychnine, morphia, nicotine, or curare in small doses always prove ineffective; they even considerably assist the progress of the intoxication and hasten death. The use of these drugs in the case of human beings should therefore be absolutely forbidden. It appears, on the other hand, that alcohol and coffee, or tea, absorbed by ingestion, are very often beneficial. Indeed, it was long ago observed that the swallowing of alcohol until symptoms of drunkenness appear retards or diminishes the phenomena of torpor and paresis that precede the ultimate phase of the intoxication. Its use may therefore be recommended when it is impossible to have recourse to the only treatment really specific that modern science places in our hands--_antivenomous serum-therapy_. It is important, however, to state that, _when serum is used, alcohol must be forbidden_. The latter hinders the effects of the former. In practice, the rational treatment of the bite of a venomous snake must be directed towards:-- (1) Preventing the absorption of the venom. (2) Neutralising, by the injection of a sufficient quantity of antitoxic serum, the effects of the venom already absorbed.