ZOOLOGY. 351 



yery large and vicious one, and very active at the time. He took 

 eight half-grown chickens and allowed the snake to strike each .under 

 the wing as fast as they could be presented to him. The first died 

 immediately ; the second after a few minutes ; the third after ten 

 minutes ; the fourth after more than an hour ; the fifth after twelve 

 hours ; the sixth was sick and drooping for several days, but recovered ; 

 the seventh was only slightly affected, and the eighth not at all. 



With the remaining specimen I was desirous of performing several 

 experiments as to the action of this poison on the blood. The follow- 

 ing is one: The snake was quite active, and as any one approached 

 the cage, began to rattle violently ; but twenty-five or thirty drops of 

 chloroform being allowed to fall on his head, one slowly after the other, 

 the sound of his rattle gradually died away, and in a few minutes he 

 was wholly under the effects of this agent. He was then adroitly 

 seized behind the jaws with the thumb and fore finger, and dragged 

 from the cage and allowed to partially resuscitate ; in this state a 

 second person held his tail to prevent his coiling around the arm of the 

 first, while a third opened his mouth and with a pair of forceps pressed 

 the fang upward, causing a flow of the poison, which was received on 

 the end of a scalpel. The snake was then returned into the cage. 



Blood was then extracted from a finger, for microscopical examina- 

 tion. The smallest quantity of the poison being presented to the 

 blood between the glasses, a change was immediately perceived the 

 corpuscles ceased to run and pile together, and remained stagnant 

 without any special alteration of structure. The whole appearance 

 was as though the vitality of the blood had been suddenly destroyed, 

 exactly as in death from lightning. This agrees also with another 

 experiment performed on a fowl where the whole mass of the blood 

 appeared quite liquid, and having little coagulable power. 



Other and like experiments were performed, but I must omit here 

 their description. 



The physiological action of this poison in animals is probably that of 

 a most powerful sedative acting through the blood on the nervous 

 centres. 



This is shown by the remarkable fact that its full and complete anti- 

 dotes are the most active stimulants ; of these, alcohol, in some shape, 

 is the first. I cannot better illustrate this important point than by the 

 two following cases, furnished me by Dr. Dearing, in whose experience 

 they occurred : 



Mr. B. was bitten just above his heel, three quarters of a mile from 

 home. The usual symptoms of acute pain and large swelling imme- 

 diately followed ; he succeeded, however, in reaching his house, but 

 complained of blindness and universal pain. Brandy was then given, 

 to the amount of one quart in an hour, this produced a little nausea, 

 but not the least intoxication ; in the next two hours another quart had 

 been given, followed with relief of pain and subsidence of swelling, but 

 without the least intoxication. Stimulants were kept up in small 

 quantities during the ensuing forty-eight hours, with the gradual pass- 

 ing off" of the local and other symptoms. He kept his room the three 



31 



