In most cases the local pain, excitement, and attacks of cramp and nausea disappear within a few minutes after the first injection. Improvement progresses very rapidly, and by the following day the patient has recovered.
The administration of ammonia, alcohol, morphia, or ether by the mouth is entirely superfluous. These drugs, as I have already stated, may even be harmful to the patient and hinder the effects of the serum. All that should be done is to give copious hot drinks, tea or coffee, and to cover up the patient warmly in order to induce abundant perspiration.
The bitten member should not be cauterised with red hot iron or with chemical agents of any kind, since such cauterisations only lead to injuries which are too often prejudicial to the normal action of the affected organs.
Treatment of Poisonous Bites in the Case of Domestic Animals.—It often happens that dogs, horses, or cattle are bitten and succumb to the poisoning in a few hours or in two or three days. Such accidents are especially frequent among sporting dogs, even in Europe, in regions in which vipers are found.
In most cases, dogs, horses, and cattle are bitten on the nose, and such bites are immediately followed by a very painful swelling, which arouses the suspicion of the owners of the animals. It is then necessary, as soon as possible, to inject subcutaneously in the right or left flank, or at the base of the neck, one or two doses of antivenomous serum, according to the gravity of the effects observed.
The injection of the serum and the dressing of the wound should be performed as in the case of poisonous bites in human beings.
Influence of the Doses of Antivenomous Serum injected, and of the Time that has elapsed since the Venomous Bite.—I have stated above that antivenomous serum possesses a preventive and curative power of such intensity, that it is capable in a few minutes of rendering animals into which it has been injected absolutely insensible to the most strongly neurotoxic venoms, such as those of Naja or Bungarus. On the other hand, I have established the fact that, the more sensitive are the animals to intoxication by venom, the greater is the quantity of antivenomous serum necessary to immunise them passively or to cure them.
In experimenting upon mice, guinea-pigs, and rabbits, it is found that in order to preserve, let us say, a mouse of 25 grammes against inoculation with half a milligramme of venom, which is ten times the lethal dose for this little animal, it is necessary to give a preventive injection of 1 c.c. of serum; while half a cubic centimetre of the same serum is sufficient to render the dose of half a milligramme of venom innocuous, when venom and serum are mixed in vitro before being injected.
In the case of the guinea-pig, it is likewise found that the dose of serum to be injected preventively, in order to protect the animal from intoxication by ten times the lethal dose of venom, is about twice as much as the quantity of the same serum that it is sufficient to mix in vitro with venom, in order to render ten times the lethal dose of venom innocuous.
If we inject into animals first venom, in doses calculated to kill the controls of the same weight in from two to three hours, and the serum fifteen minutes afterwards, it is found that the quantity of serum that must be injected in order to prevent death is about thrice as great, as that which neutralises in vitro the dose of venom inoculated.