454 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HISTORY SOCJETY, 1801. 



17th. — Swelling rapidly disappearing. No head symptoms. Urine 

 very pale and plentiful, sp. gr. 1004. 



18th. — Pangala omitted. His convalescence was uninterrupted, 

 and he left the hospital on the 22nd perfectly welL 



Dr. McCalman remarks : — " I do not pretend to explain the action 

 of Pangala, that the remedy acts generally and physiologically is 

 apparent from the early drying up of remote haemorrhages (e. g., 

 bleeding from the urinary tract) and the relief of cerebral symptoms, 

 effects due to a restoration of the natural state of the blood, and, 

 thro\igh it, of the nervous centres. The drug may also stimulate 

 organs concerned in the elimination of the poison. The subject is 

 one which calls for further careful experimental research." 



Through the courtesy of Surgeon-General Pinkerton I have been 

 eupplied with further extracts from the records of the Ratnagiri 

 Civil Hospital which shew that Pangala root is still used with the 

 same success in the treatment of Phursa bite. Only one fatal case 

 is recorded, and in that the remedy was administered in the form of 

 tincture instead of in the usual manner. 



Mr. G. "VV. Vidal, C. S., in a letter to the Bombay Gazette, dated 

 January 30th, 1890, states that the bite of the Phursa-snake is 

 apparently fatal in about 20 per cent, of cases, and the action of the 

 poison is slow. He says, " In collecting materials for an account of 

 the snakes of Ratnagiri for the Bombay Gazetteer, I found (in 1878) 

 records of 62 fatal cases treated at the Civil Hospital. These cases 

 shewed that death occurred on an average in four and a half days, 

 though in some instances patients had lingered up to twenty days." 

 In 1855-56 Dr. Imlach, then Civil Surgeon of Shikarpur, in a 

 description of the 'Kapar ' {EcMs carinata), published in the Trans- 

 actions of the Bombay Medical and Physical Society (Vol. iii., New 

 Series, p. 80), wrote that " a reference to police returns will shew 

 that in by far the majority of cases serious injury and death have 

 been caused by the bite of this species/' In an article upon the 

 "Venomous Snakes of North Canara" (Journ., Nat. Hist. Soc. Bombay, 

 Vol. V., No. 1, p. 69), Mr. Vidal says:—" There is indeed no doubt 

 that the Echis is a far more potent factor than any other venomous 

 snake in swelling the mortality of the Bombay Presidency, and it is 

 important that this fact should be more generally known and 



