42 PHYSIOLOGY AND TOXICOLOGY 



night. Its wounds were slightly tinted with effused blood; but the muscles were 

 not softened to the same extent as in the last case, nor were they at all decom- 

 posed. The blood of this bird was imperfectly coagulated. 



Upon considering the foregoing experiments, it will be seen that all the pigeons 

 escaped but one, that the rabbit was also unhurt, and that the reed-birds all died. 

 These little birds are, however, uncommonly hardy, and, as we shall see in future, 

 do not succumb readily when mechanically injured. Again, when, at this period, 

 I subjected other reed-birds, to the number of ten, to similar wounds, and injected 

 these with water and infusions of fresh muscle, only two out of the ten died. 

 It is difBcult, therefore, to avoid the belief that the reed-birds which received in 

 their tissues the minced gland and its infusions, really perished from the rattle- 

 snake poison; a belief which, on the whole, was strengthened by the state of their 

 blood and muscles, and by the local signs which some of them exhibited. It is 

 also to be observed that the reed-bird is remarkably susceptible to Crotalus venom, 

 and will frequently die from a quantity of poison so minute that it would be hard 

 to conceive of its power to destroy life, until we had made the experiment. Thus, 

 while half a drop will often kill a reed-bird in a minute or two, one-eighth of a 

 drop will prove fatal after a lapse of from two to eight hours; so that it is probable 

 that even a smaller quantity would be found sufficient to destroy its existence. 

 Now, as it is possible that quantities so minute may escape any mode of separa- 

 tion, and thus may remain in the gland tissue until the final infusion is formed, or 

 even afterwards, we are not logically called upon to infer from the last series of 

 experiments, that the material for a sudden temporary supply of venom-saliva is 

 stored away in the gland in a semi-solid state. In this respect, therefore, the 

 venom secretion is probably unlike saliva. 



Again, unlike saliva, venom is formed slowly, and thence we have some right 

 to infer that those provisions for rapid secretion, which belong to the salivary 

 glands of man or the dog, need not exist in the poison gland of the serpent, and 

 this view is certainly fortified, upon the whole, by the general result of the experi- 

 ments above detailed. 



In despite of what has here been urged, it is still desirable that these experi- 

 ments should be repeated, with every possible modification; since, as I have 

 endeavored to show, this, like all other portions of our subject, is girt about with 

 such difficulties as may well baffle the most careful. 



We have now to ascertain how much right the venom gland has to be regarded 

 as a salivary organ, analogous to the parotid gland. 



The argument from anatomy alone would certainly teach us to respect this view 

 as correct, and to consider the poison gland as a true salivary organ. Its position 

 and general structure all favor this idea, just as the appearance and minute 

 anatomy of the pancreas were once believed to authorize us in placing that organ 

 among the salivary bodies, and in giving to it the name of the abdominal salivary 

 gland. But in this case, as in the one before us, the broader light of physiological 

 inquiry has revealed the truth, that anatomical resemblance, even to the minutest 

 details, does not of necessity involve physiological likeness. When, therefore, we 

 turn from the anatomy of the poison gland to examine it under other points of 



