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blood, which proves deadly when introduced into the very source 

 (the blood) from which it was derived ! 



With the view of ascertaining the power and amount of this 

 poison, Dr. Bearing performed the following experiment; the 

 snake was a very large and vicious one, and very active at the 

 time. He took eight half-grown chickens, and allowed the snake 

 to strike each under the wing as fast as they could be presented 

 to him. The 1st died immediately ; the 2d after a few minutes ; 

 the 3d after ten minutes ; the 4th after more than an hour ; the 

 5th after twelve hours ; the 6ih was sick and drooping for 

 several days, but recovered ; the 7th was only slightly affected ; 

 and the 8th not at all. 



With the remaining specimen 1 was desirous of performing 

 several experiments as to the action of this poison on the blood. 

 The following is one : — The snake was quite active, and as soon 

 as any one approached the cage, began to rattle violently ; but 

 twenty-five or thirty drops of chloroform being allowed to fall on 

 his head, one slowly after the other, the sound of his rattle gra- 

 dually died away, and in a few minutes he was wholly under the 

 effects of this agent. He was then adroitly seized behind the 

 jaws with the thumb and forefinger, and dragged from the cage 

 and allowed to partially resuscitate ; in this state a second person 

 held his tail to prevent his coiling around the arm of the first, 

 while a third opened his mouth, and with a pair of forceps pressed 

 the fang upward, causing a flow of the poison, which was received 

 on the end of a scalpel. The snake was then returned into the 

 cage. 



Blood was then extracted from a finger for microscopical 

 examination. The smallest quantity of the poison being pre- 

 sented to the blood between the glasses, a change was imme- 

 diately perceived, the corpuscles ceased to run and pile together, 

 and remained stagnant without any special alteration of structure. 

 The whole appearance was as though the vitality of the blood 

 had been suddenly destroyed, exactly as in death from lightning. 

 This agrees also with another experiment performed on a fowl, 

 where the whole mass of the blood appeared quite liquid, and 

 having little coagulable power. 



Other and like experiments were performed, but I must omit 

 here their description. 



