OROCODILIANS, LIZARDS, AND SNAKES. 711 



lished a no less important treatise on the subject.^ He pointed to the yellow por- 

 tion of the siipramaxillary ghiud as being structurally ditferent from the white 

 portion, and from its being connected with a large grooved fang by a single duct he 

 concluded, with equal assurance, that we have he-e before us a venom apparatus 

 only in degree differing from that of the snakes with poison fangs fixed to the ante- 

 rior end of the maxillary bone. His results were accepted and introduced into the 

 classification adopted in the monumental herpetological work of Dumeril and 

 Bibron, the Erpetologie G(^ncrale, in which the snakes with grooved posterior 

 fangs were jdaced in a separate group as " Opistogh/phs." On the other hand, 

 Schlegel, paying no attention whatever to Duvernoy, in his Physiognomic des Ser- 

 pentes, maintained his standpoint, and so great was the authority of the learned 

 Leyden professor that his view was until quite recently accepted bj- some of the 

 most prominent systematists. It seems that neither side ever attempted to end the 

 disi»ute by direct experiments, and gradually the Opistoglyphs to many herpetologists 

 ceased even to be "suspected." 



About ten years ago the interest in this question was suddenly revived, and as it 

 may now be fairly regarded as a burning one, some space will be devoted to a short 

 review of several of the recent investigations into this theme. 



Two Italian students, M. G. Peracca and C. Deregibus, were led to make special 

 investigations into the possible venomous nature oi Malpolon lacertina { = Cwlopeltis 

 iiisiguitus), a snake common about Nizza and in parts of Italy. In a communica- 

 tion to the Academy of Medicine at Turin, in May, 1883,- after first describing the 

 grooved fangs, the glands, and the duct leading to the fangs, they recounted their 

 experiences with the snake in question. 



Their experiments were carried out with two specimens of Citlopeltis {=Malpolon), 

 one of medium size, the other much larger; the victims consisted of lizards, frogs, 

 and toads. The snake did not bite them voluntarily; it was necessary to open its 

 mouth and to force the animal into its throat; whereupon the snake inoculated the 

 venom, the motion of the bone carrying the poison fangs being very distinctly seen 

 ou account of the manner in which they were standing out from the posterior part 

 of the head. The act of biting lasted some mornents, and the snake repeated this 

 act several times without allowing its prey to escape. 



The animals were bitten in the hind limb; in the case of the frog the skin had to 

 be removed from the part to be bitten, as the irritating secretion of the skin 

 appeared to be particularly distasteful to the snake. Without reciting the various 

 experiments in det.ail, the authors state the more apparent phenomena accompany- 

 ing them to be (1) the suspension of the respiration, which in the main occurs in 

 a very few minutes (thirteen minutes being the maximum in a toad) and may happen 

 suddenly, or may be preceded by a gradual sinking, interrupted by a deep breathing 

 pause; (2) the cessation of rellex movements in the bitten limb, while still persist- 

 ing for some time in the rest of the body; the excitements a])plied below the bitten 

 point ceased almost immediately to be transmitted to the medulla and to show 

 reflexes. This alteration maintained itself local for some time, afterwards progress- 

 ing toward the periphery along the nerves of the wounded limb. The general 

 paralysis does not delay long in coming. It is but rarely accompanied by convul- 

 sions. The heart continues to beat for a long while (in the toad), but its strength 

 decreases gradually. The blood revealed nothing notable under the spectroscope; 

 as a matter of course it had become venous at the suspension of the respiration. The 

 rapid changes which were observed at the wounded point are noteworthy; the mus- 

 cular tissue became livid and inexcitable. Death ensued generally in half an hour, or 

 less; in a toad it took place in twenty-six minutes. The heart of a frog continued 

 to beat for many hours after. The authors then call attention t'j the interesting 

 similarity between the above symptoms and those accompanying the poisoning by 



'Ann. Sci. Nat., XXVI, 1832, pp. 144-156; XXX, 1833, pp. fi-26. 



-Giornale della K. Accademia di Medicina di Torino (3), XXXI, 1883, pp. 37!t-383. 



