ion, assuming as a working hypothesis that
there is but one law for all snake-poison and not several ones, just as
there is one law for the structure of these reptiles, admitting of
variations, but not of absolute divergence from the general plan. The
shortest and surest way to find this law is close observation and
careful analysis of the symptoms produced by the poison on man, and as
the opportunities for such observation are not of frequent occurrence to
the individual, co-operation and careful comparison of notes on the part
of many observers.

This method of investigation, which, during the last few years, has been
pursued in Australia with most satisfactory results, was never practised
anywhere else, not even in America, but instead of it each observer,
with few exceptions, kept his own notes to himself, and if there
happened to be one here and there hungry for more knowledge than his
scanty opportunities for observation on man would supply, his resort
was usually experiments on animals. A few snakes were caught, a few
luckless dogs or other animals procured, and the slaughter of the
innocents began.

As test experiments to confirm observations on man, or made with a view
of finding a correct theory of the action of snake-poison, these
attempts were unobjectionable, although, without an elaborate scientific
apparatus and in other than skilled hands, they were not likely to
produce results of any value. But most of the experimenters were not
content with purely theoretical aims. They were seeking to find the
antidote by a purely empirical method, and had nothing to guide them in
the choice of drugs. A dose of snake-poison was administered to an
animal, and then a dose of some drug or chemical, chosen _ad libitum_,
sent after it. Next day another presumed antidote was tried, another
animal slaughtered, and so on _ad nauseam_, until finally the baffled
antidote-searcher, not one whit the wiser for all his trouble and the
useless tortures inflicted, confessed himself beaten and joined in the
"_non possums_" of his predecessors.

One important point has been completely left out of sight and ignored in
all this experimenting on animals. It is the fact that the action of
snake-poison on the human system and on that of animals, more especially
dogs, though very similar, is not absolutely identical, and that for
this reason alone results of experiments on the latter cannot be
indiscriminately applied to man. As pointed