48 ON THE PHYSIOGNOMY OF SERPENTS. 



have dangerous consequences from a concurrence of circum- 

 stances, such as the heat of the climate, the mental and 

 pathological state of the animal bitten, the fury which 

 animates the biter, &c. ; for the same reason, the bite of 

 serpents not venomous, may become dangerous even to 

 man, -when the nature of their saliva has been altered by 

 such circumstances. But the poison of venomous snakes 

 has peculiar deleterious qualities naturally, although the 

 circumstances to which we have alluded may contribute to 

 render it more active. 



The poison, in its fresh state, is a transparent, limpid 

 fluid, of a greenish-yellow tint, slightly glutinous, though 

 less so tlian the saliva, to which it has much resemblance ; 

 dried, it becomes viscid, and sticks firmly to substances ; 

 heated, it evaporates without inflaming ; it is diffusible in 

 water, which it renders turbid and wliitish when shaken 

 with it. Its properties have considerable affinity to those 

 of mucus; the action of reagents shew it to be neither 

 acid nor alkaline ; it has no peculiar smell ; applied to 

 the tongue, it produces the same sensation as grease : it 

 may be taken, according to Fontana,* internally, without 

 the slightest inconvenience being excited ; but this obser- 

 vation has been recently contradicted by the experiments 

 of Dr HERiNG,-f- made in Surinam, on the nature of the 

 venom of the Crotalus mutus. This traveller, on taking 

 at different times diverse doses of this poison, mingled 

 with water, felt the effects for eight days and more ; they 

 manifested themselves by pains in the larynx, and other 

 parts of the body, by a copious secretion of mucus from 

 the nose and oesophagus, by a frequent diarrhoea, accom- 

 panied by pains in the rectum, &c. ; to these were joined 

 other very remarkable effects, owing to the influence which 

 this poison exercised, according to Dr Hering, on the 

 moral faculties. 



It follows from what we have stated, that the venom of 

 snakes produces its deleterious effects only, when, intro- 

 duced into a wound, it mingles with the blood: these 

 morbid symptoms manifest themselves more terribly and 



* This fact was known to the ancients. 



t See Staff, Archiv. x. cap. 2. See Lenz, p. 460. 



