Page:AJWall Indian Snake Poisons.djvu/9

vi PREFACE. various remedies that have been proposed for snakebite — and they have been very many — it has not been thought necessary to give the unsatisfactory results of the various trials. The effect of potassium permanganate in destroying the activity of cobra-poison when mixed with it before injection was ascertained by the author some four years ago, but frequent experiment has convinced him that as a practical method of treating the constitutional effects of the poison it is of no avail.

The recommendations for treatment given have been tested practically, and the circumstances under which the misfortune happens have been constantly borne in mind. Cases of poisoning by snakes do not usually occur in crowded cities with hospitals always open, vyith every appliance to receive the sufferer, but in the fields where the peasant steps on the lurking reptile, or more frequently still in the remote village where the wife is bitten in a dark corner of her hut by the snake which superstition has compelled her household to protect. Directions for treatment, to be of use, must be adapted to these contingencies.

The snakes mentioned have been referred to, as a rule, by their scientific names. Had vernacular terms been employed it would not have been possible to select any that would have been intelligible except in very limited areas. Thus the Bungarus cœruleus is the Krait of Bengal, but the Gedi Paragúdú of the Coromandel coast. The Echis carinata is Afaë of Delhi,