APPENDIX E. cxxix 



power of coagulation and becomes thinner and poorer.' 

 After the death of the person ' it greedily absorbs oxygen 

 when exposed to the air, and it absorbs it more than 

 unpoisoned blood.' Though the precise changes are quite 

 unknown, its constitution is obviously profoundly modified ^ 

 The rapidity with which the symptoms are produced in the 

 case of snake-bite do not in the least prevent our comparing 

 the effects of snake-poison ^ with those of the contagious 

 zymotic diseases. In some of these the effects have been 

 even more rapidly produced. Speaking of ' the Black 

 Death,' which raged in the fifteenth century, Hecker tells us 

 that, ' Many were struck as if by lightning, and died upon 

 the spot, and this more frequently among the young and 

 strong than the old.' Again, Dr. Aitken says : ' When the 

 cholera reached Muscat, instances are given in which only 

 ten minutes elapsed from the first apparent seizure before 

 life was extinct' ; whilst instances of death taking place from 

 cholera-poison in two, three, or more hours, are well known 

 to be extremely common. 



' Its effect 

 Holds such an enmity with blood of man 

 That, swift as quicksilver, it courses through' 

 The natural gates and alleys of the body.' 



The action of known poisons, whether animal or other, 



^ Dr. Richardson has ascertained that, unlike vaccine lymph, the 

 snake-poison becomes weakened by dilution ; and similar observations 

 have been made by others. The ' particulate ' nature of the poison in 

 vaccine lymph, which has been demonstrated by the skilful experiments 

 of Chauveau and Sanderson, is a condition in which it very probably 

 exists in many other contagia. 



^ That such effects are in no way necessarily dependent upon the 

 fact that this poison contains living elements, we may imagine from 

 the influence of prussic acid, morphia, etc. Nay, more ; I have had 

 frequent personal experience of the fact that a spasmodic and catarrhal 

 affection somewhat resembling hay-fever may be produced by emanations 

 from certain Nematoid worms, even after they had been preserved for 

 two or three years in spirits of wine, and macerated for a time in calcic 



.VOL. II. i 



