Regarding the supposed correlation of serpent poison and the septic ferments of certain tropical and infectious fevers, they are not necessarily always contagious.  It may be interesting to note that one Doctor Humboldt in 1852,[9] in an essay read before the Royal Academy of Medical Sciences at Havana, assumed their proximate identity, and advocated the inoculation of the poison of one as a prophylactic of the other.  He claimed to have personally inoculated numberless persons in New Orleans, Vera Cruz, and Cuba with exceedingly dilute venom, thereby securing them perfect immunity from yellow fever.  Aside from the extraordinary nature of the statement, the fact that the doctor affirmed, he had never used the virus to an extent sufficient to produce any of its toxic symptoms, cast discredit over the whole, and proofs were demanded and promised.  This was the last of the subject, however, which soon passed into oblivion, though whether from failure on the part of the medico to substantiate his assertions, or from the inanition of his colleagues, it is difficult to determine, though the presumption is largely in favor of the former.  Nevertheless, it is worthy of consideration and exhaustive experimentation, since it is no less plausible than the theory which rendered the name of Jenner famous.

  [Footnote 9:  London Lancet.]

Outside of the transfusion of blood, for which there are strong reasons for believing would be attended with happy results, the sole remedies available in serpent poisoning are measures looking to the prompt cutting off of the circulation of the affected part, and the direct stimulation of the heart’s action and the respiratory organs, until such a time as Nature shall have eliminated all toxical evidences; and these must necessarily be mechanical.  Alcoholic stimulants are available only as they act mechanically in sustaining cardiac and pulmonary activity, and where their free use is prolonged efficacy is quickly exhausted, and they tend rather to hasten a fatal result.  They are devoid of the slightest antidotal properties, and in no way modify the activity of the venom; and an intoxicated person, so far from enjoying the immunity with which he is popularly credited, is far more apt to succumb to the virus than him of unfuddled intellect.  The reasons are obvious.  Theoretically, for purely physiological and therapeutic reasons amyl nitrite should be of incalculable value, though I have no knowledge of its use in this connection, since its vapor when inhaled is a most powerful stimulator of cardiac action, and when administered by the mouth it is unapproached in its control of spasmodically contracted vessels and muscles.  The relief its vapor affords in the collapse of chloroform anaesthesia, in which dissolution is imminent from paralyzed heart’s action, is instantaneous, and its effect upon the spasmodic and suffocative sensations of hydrophobia are equally prompt.  Moreover, without further discussing its physiological functions, it is the nearest approach to an antidote to certain zymotic poisons, and especially valuable in warding off and aborting the action of the ferment that gives rise to pertussis, or whooping cough. Iodide of ethyl is another therapeutical measure that is worthy of consideration; and iodoform in the treatment of the sequelae incident to recovery.