In connection with his institute, and right by the laboratory, the
doctor has a large serpentarium, in which quantities of the common
poisonous and non-poisonous snakes are kept, and some of the rarer
ones. He has devoted considerable time to the effort to find out if
there are any natural enemies of the poisonous snakes of his country,
and he has discovered that the most formidable enemy of the many
dangerous Brazilian snakes is a non-poisonous, entirely harmless,
rather uncommon Brazilian snake, the mussurama. Of all the interesting
things the doctor showed us, by far the most interesting was the
opportunity of witnessing for ourselves the action of the mussurama
toward a dangerous snake.
The doctor first showed us specimens of the various important snakes,
poisonous and non-poisonous, in alcohol. Then he showed us
preparations of the different kinds of venom and of the different
anti-venom serums, presenting us with some of the latter for our use
on the journey. He has been able to produce two distinct kinds of
anti-venom serum, one to neutralize the virulent poison of the
rattlesnake's bite, the other to neutralize the poison of the
different snakes of the lachecis genus. These poisons are somewhat
different and moreover there appear to be some differences between the
poisons of the different species of lachecis; in some cases the poison
is nearly colorless, and in others, as in that of the jararaca, whose
poison I saw, it is yellow.
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