182 Venoms 



(1) Action upon the Liver. 

 Whether we are deaHno" with the venoms of Viperid^ or 



'o 



CoLUBRiD^, the anatomo-pathological processes are ahke, and the 

 changes produced are more or less profound, according to the 

 degree or the slowness of the intoxication. 



The liver is more affected than any other organ. In cases in 

 which death has quickly followed the injection of the venom, the 

 protoplasm of the cells is merely cloudy, or granular, and the 

 granulations readily take a stain in their periphery, though the 

 interior remains uncoloured. If, on the contrary, the animal has 

 survived for some hours, the protoplasm becomes condensed in 

 certain parts of the cell, leaving vacuoles, the hmits of which 

 are not well defined. A portion of the cellular protoplasm is 

 necrosed and destroyed. In these cases the nuclei have already 

 undergone a change ; although their contours may be well defined, 

 we discover in their interior only a very little chromatin in the 

 form of small granulations, and the nuclear fluid takes a feeble 

 stain with basic colours, since it contains a little chromatin in 

 solution. 



"When the protoplasm of the hepatic cells has suffered more 

 pronounced lesions, the changes in the nuclei are also more marked ; 

 the quantity of nuclear chromatin diminishes and slowly loses 

 its property of taking stains, in proportion as the protoplasm of 

 the hepatic cells undergoes necrosis ; finally, in the hepatic cell, 

 there remains nothing more than a small quantity of granular proto- 

 plasm without a nucleus (Nowak). 



In certain cases we find extensive areas of fatty degeneration, 

 or small foci in which the hepatic tissue is absolutely destroyed. 

 In the case of the dog it may even happen that the microscopic 

 structure of the parenchyma has entirely disappeared. The arrange- 

 ment of the hepatic cells in lobules can no longer be distinguished ; 

 the trabecule are ruptured and broken asunder, and we find nothing 

 more than a confused agglomeration of cells floating in the extra- 

 vasated blood. 



