BIOLOGY. 279 



which presented altered blood-corpuscles and acicular crystals." 

 He concludes that the special toxic effect of this poison is due to 

 its destruction of the red blood-corpuscles. 



The Cobra-de-Capello. — M. Vulpian, of Paris, in experiments 

 with the poison of this serpent, the activity of which was doubt- 

 less considerably diminished by its transmission from India, found 

 that it ajjpeared to act on the central nervous system, gradually 

 suppressing its functions, and producing a remarkable state of 

 somnolence, acting on the muscles and nerves like curare and 

 many other poisonous substances. He did not notice the increase 

 of white corpuscles observed by Dr. Halford, but i'ound that the 

 buccal mucous membrane will absorb the poison, producing the 

 same symptoms as when received from a wound. This is an in- 

 teresting fact, as it might render dangerous the attempt to extract 

 the poison from a wound by suction. If this poison resembles 

 curare in its action, there is nothing improbable in the native state- 

 ments that certain herbs are antidotes to its effects, or that vege- 

 table principles should exist having opposite physiological eflfects, 

 and therefore capable of neutralizing its action. 



Woorali. — It has hitherto been imagined that the action of 

 curare, when applied to a wound, is to cause death without any 

 visible struggle, and without pain. Dr. Claude Bernard has 

 shown this notion to be utterly erroneous. He states that the 

 paraly^sis creeps gradually on from limb to limb, depriving the 

 animal of motion, and yet without in the slightest degree ajffect- 

 ing its intellectual faculties or power of volition, which remain 

 unimpaired to the last moment. This he considers one of the 

 greatest tortures to which an intelligent being can be subjected. 

 Death is caused by the paralysis of the respiratory organs, which 

 cease to provide the blood with the quantity of oxygen it requires. 

 This being the case, a poisoned animal may be restored to life by 

 the mechanical injection of air into the lungs. This important 

 fact Dr. Bernard proved by actual experiment, finding that, in 

 the course of a few hours, the poison was eliminated. — Comptes 

 Bendus. 



The Poison Ahazga. — This is used as an ordeal on the west 

 coast of Africa, and found by French chemists to resemble nux 

 vomica in its physiological efiects. Specimens have been received 

 in Edinburgh by Dr. Fraser, in bundles of long, slender, crooked 

 stems ; he comes to the conclusion that it is new to the West Afri- 

 can flora, and thinks it may be a new species of strychnos. He 

 has separated from it a new crystalline alkaloid, which he calls 

 Akazga, closely resembling strychnia, but differing from it in 

 being precipitated by alkaline bicarbonates. A suspected wizard 

 is made to drink an infusion of the 1jark, and then to walk over 

 small sticks of the plant ; if guilty, he stumbles-, and tries to step 

 over the sticks as if they were logs, finally falling in convulsions, 

 when he is beaten to death by clubs ; if innocent, the kidneys act 

 freely, and the poison is supposed to be thus eliminated. Some 

 twigs of different structure were found iu the bundles received by 

 him, not yielding the alkaloid ; and those who escape may, per- 

 haps, have taken, by accident or design, an infusion of the spuri- 



