File:The American Museum journal (c1900-(1918)) (17540048033).jpg

Title: The American Museum journal
Identifier: americanmuseumjo16amer (find matches)
Year: c1900-(1918) (c190s)
Authors: American Museum of Natural History
Subjects: Natural history
Publisher: New York : American Museum of Natural History
Contributing Library: American Museum of Natural History Library
Digitizing Sponsor: Biodiversity Heritage Library

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194 THE AMERICAN MUSEUM JOURNAL reptile house the wound was massaged and repeatedly bathed with a permanganate solu- tion, which is made up by dissolving potas- sium permanganate crystals in water until a deep wine color is produced.
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By courtesy Sturgis and Walton Company A Hindu snake-charmer's outfit.— The rearing snakes are specimens of the cobra de capello (IVaja tripudians), or spectacled cobra, whose poison attacks the nerve cen- ters of a victim. This most sensational of poisonous snakes swarms over India, causing fearful loss of human life. The "hood" discloses a weird marking not unlike a pair of spectacles. The reptile crawling from the basket is the tic polonga, or chain viper (Vipera russelli), a common snake in India, whose poison attacks the blood of the victim, producing internal hsEmorrhagc About one and a half liours later the physi- cian administered the serum produced by Calmette. It was injected hypodermically not near or into the wounds, but under the skin of the abdomen, where it gained ready access to the general circulation and was carried throughout the system. In a few minutes the ligatures were removed and then for the first time marked local swelling and discoloration — the characteristic effects of crotaline poisoning — set in. Unfortunately the serum which was in crystaUine form, took so very long in dissolving in the cold water (and warm water must not be used as it coagulates the serum) that matters began to take a serious turn. Mr. Toomey was taken with violent chills, followed by nausea and profuse perspiration. Immediately after the injection of the first serum the physician and Mr. Raymond L. Ditmars, curator of reptiles in the New York Zoological Park, began fluidifying the second tube of Cal- mette's serum which they used on Mr. Toomey at one o'clock. At intervals of twenty minutes small doses of brandy were given as a form of stimulant. It is well to emphasize the fact that whiskey never did and never will cure snake bite, and taken in large quantities it not only produces no beneficial effects but also is actually deleteri- ous to the recovery of the patient. Those people who claim to have been "cured" by whiskey, recovered not because of it, but in spite of it. At four o'clock in the afternoon Mr. Toomey was removed to the German Hospital and on the following morning was almost in a state of coma. By this time the arm had become alarmingly swollen, being over twenty inches in circumference, while the pectoral muscles were likewise swollen. Also discoloration due to the internal haemor- rhage had begun. At this point Mr. Ditmars attempted to locate Dr. Brazil, Director of the Instituto Serumtherapico, de Butantan in Sao Paulo, Brazil, who chanced to be in this city and about to sail for South America. Not until late in the afternoon of this second day could he be located, then his antidote, the anti-crotaline serum, was administered. Mr. Toomey's condition changed at once and he began to imjirove rapidly. So effective was the serum and so rapid the decrease in the swelling that it was urmecessary to make the customary drainage cuts, important hereto- fore in cases of snake bite. By the thirtieth, three days after the accident, the swelling had decreased one half. In the afternoon of that day a consultation was held by Dr. Brazil, a r(>presentative of the staff of the German

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