730 JOURNAL,BOMBA Y NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY, Vol. XVIII. 



whole body c He grew weak till he could hardly articulate and 

 a drowsiness supervened which culminated in death. A third case 

 recorded by Fayrer died three hours after a bite in the finger. Here 

 again great pain was experienced locally, and swelling. His respiration 

 became short and hurried, he complained of constriction round the 

 chest, became increasingly drowsy till death. Elliot records the 

 death of a sepoy thirty-one hours after being bitten on the ankle. No 

 symptoms were recorded. He was treated with ligature, and inci- 

 sion, and 11 grains of strychnia were administered hypodermically. 



Another case was recorded in the Indian Medical Gazette of 

 February 1874. The subject, a Hindu male, aged about 60, was 

 bitten in the left index finger, at 9 p.m. one evening. At 5 a.m. 

 the next morning he was admitted into hospital with giddiness, 

 drowsiness, incoherent speech, difficult breathing and a choking sensa- 

 tion in the throat. He could not walk or sit up unsupported. The 

 hand was livid, swollen, and painful. An hour later his parotid glands 

 were noticed swollen, he vomited, and had severe shooting pain 

 in the left thigh. Later vomiting was repeated, breathing became 

 more oppressed, and he became very restless. At 7 a.m. he was unable 

 to speak or swallow, his eyelids had drooped, and he was constantly 

 putting his hand into the mouth as though to attempt to remove 

 some obstacle. His leg muscles twitched. The symptoms increased, 

 and he died at 9 a.m. in convulsions. He was treated with six 

 intravenous injections of liquor ammonia, amounting in all to three 

 drachms. 



I am indebted to Colonel F. W. Dawson for the following : — A 

 keeper in the Trivandrum Museum was bitten on the right index 

 finger by a small krait, one and-a-half feet long, at about 1-30 p.m., 

 13th August 1907. The bite felt like a pinprick, there was no 

 bleeding, and indeed no mark whatever of a puncture. He went 

 home having declined all persuasions to go to hospital, and ap- 

 parently stayed in his house till about 3 p.m., when he began to feel a 

 burning pain in the bitten finger. He walked to a hakim's house 

 without any difficulty, and soon after arriving suffered intense pain in 

 the abdomen. At 5-30 his neck became rigid so that he could not 

 turn his head, and his body became rigid so that he could not stoop. 

 He was unable to talk. His respirations became laborious and coma 



