I. On cobra poison

On my arrival in India my attention was strongly directed to the enormous number of deaths, annually resulting from the bites of poisonous snakes. Statistics of the deaths from such causes are collected by the various Provincial Governments of India, but as might be expected the difficulty of obtaining correct returns is very great, and it is certain that the number registered is far short of the real mortality resulting from this cause. Even with such incorrect returns, however, as many as 11,416 deaths in India from the bites of poisonous snakes were reported during a single year, and it is pro­bably within the mark to say that in the whole of India the annual number of deaths from snake bite is not less than 15,000.