AN IMPORTANT MEDICAL DISCOVERY.

Temuka Leader, Issue 928, 16 March 1882, Page 3

AN IMPORTANT MEDICAL DISCOVERY.

The method of counteracting disease by introducing foreign substances into the blood by inoculation, or injection, has long been known to medicine. Its principal application has hitherto been to prevent the contagion of small-pox, though the same process seems now in a fair way to be applied to the prevention of a large class of diseases called zymotic. Hypodermic injections have been used chiefly for anesthetic purposes, but a recent discovery by Dr J. B. Laeerda, sub-Director of the Laboratory of Experimental Physiology in the National Museum of Rio Janeiro, will lead to their more general application. This ingenious scientist has proved that a solution of permanganate of potassium injected into the blood ; s an infallible cure for snakebites. The discovery is of great value all over the American Continent, where venomous reptiles are common, and especially in the tropics, where they abound. In the province of Bengal 10,064 persons died from snake bites alone during 1880. The remedy Las been thoroughly tested. A laborer, bitten by a veronous snake on a plantation in Pirahy in Brazil, was taken home, a little of the permanganate of potassium injected with a small syringe, and he so far recovered as to be able to go to work again the next day. A negro on a sugar plantation in Barra was bitten bj a very poisonous snake called jaracca. His limbs swelled, he began to bleed at the throat and nostrils, and became insensible. He was cured in the same manner by a small quantity of the solution, and resumed his work in fourhours, In the province of Santer, Wil liam Broadbent was bitten by a jaraceussia which lie was passing from one flask to to another The bite cf this serpent is very deadly, but the remedy, applied by a a friend, removed the pain in a few minutes. These cases are attested by Rio Janeiro papers. The information is of sufficient importance to be widely disseminated on this coast, where the remedy may be used as a simple and available antidote not only for the bites of snakes, but for those of scorpions and tarantulas. —American Paper.