652 ANNUAL RECORD OF SCIENCE AND INDUSTRY. 



and the number of attacks of disease for a definite time will 

 not easily throw light on the subject. He gives instances to 

 show how widely different observations may yet give the 

 same means. Quarterly Jour. Meteor. Soc, January 7, 1873. 



PAHONIM, A POISON FEOM THE GABOON. 



A poison from a substance known as pahonim, obtained in 

 the Gaboon district, acts with great energy upon the heart, 

 producing death by arresting the action of that organ pri- 

 marily in consequence of the abolition of the contractility of 

 the cardiac muscles, and subsequently of the others. AVhen 

 introduced into the pericardium, it stoj^s the action of the 

 heart more rapidly than when the same quantity is injected, 

 but the excitability of the nerves is not affected. Death is 

 produced without apparently affecting either the great sym- 

 pathetic, the encephalon, the spinal cord, or the pneumogas- 

 tric. It acts less swiftly when taken into the stomach than 

 by cutaneous absorption. The oily extract of the poison acts 

 more rapidly than the same weight of the crystallized princi- 

 ples of digitalis and of the upas, but the marked effects are 

 later in appearing. Five milligrammes of the impure alcohol- 

 ic extract have been known to kill a dog w^eighiug fifty-four 

 pounds. 13 A^ April 1,1873, 136. 



