8On Snake-Poison Its Action and its Antidote Case Studies - Successful and unsuccessful Historical Text on treatment of snake bites Since the method of treating snakebite-poisoning by hypodermic injections of strychnine, discovered by the writer and published but a few years ago, has already been adopted by the medical profession throughout the Australian colonies, and practised even by laymen in cases of urgency with much success, it has been repeatedly suggested to him that the subject calls for further elucidation at his hands; that the morbid processes engendered by the snake venom and the modus operandi of the antidote should be explained by him in a manner satisfying the demands of science, and at the same time within the grasp of the intelligent, moderately educated layman. When the latter, in a case of pressing emergency and in the absence of medical aid, is called upon to administer a potent drug in heroic doses, the aggregate of which would be attended by serious consequences in the absence of the deadly ophidian virus, an intelligent insight alone into the process he is about to initiate will give him that decision and promptitude of action, on the full exercise of which on his part it may depend whether, within a few hours, a valuable and to him probably dear life will be saved or lost.