The Snake Woman

Martha Adderson: [Martha is in bed. The doctor approaches with a loaded hypodermic needle] No!

Dr. Horace Adderson: Now, Martha, there's no sense in your carrying on like this and it's no use screaming. Now, let's get this over so I can return to my work.

Martha Adderson: No, I won't let you.

Dr. Horace Adderson: But Martha, you're not making sense. You've administered this dozens of times without all this nonsense.

Martha Adderson: All that snake poison in my blood, for months, for years. You don't know, nobody knows what it will do.

Dr. Horace Adderson: Of course I know what it will do. I know what it's done. It gave you back your mind when they all said you were hopelessly insane.

Martha Adderson: I know that but...... .

Dr. Horace Adderson: Other investigators have employed snake venom in the treatment of hemophilia, epilepsy, rheumatism, hypertension, even cancer. But it is Horace Adderson - your husband - who is the only herpetologist to have cured a sick mind with snake venom.

Martha Adderson: But what about the baby?

Dr. Horace Adderson: The baby?

Martha Adderson: That snake poison flowing through my blood, what will it do to my unborn child?

Dr. Horace Adderson: So that's it!

Martha Adderson: Under your microscope, doesn't all new life look the same? Plant, fish, human even serpent!

Dr. Horace Adderson: That's true but...

Martha Adderson: Life is such a miraculous, delicate thing, what if this poison were to upset the balance and instead of a normal, healthy child, ours were to be born a...?

Dr. Horace Adderson: That's ridiculous! Don't you see that it just shows that your mind is slipping away again? Now Martha, just relax... .