OP THE VENOM OF TUE RATTLESNAKE. 61 



to have been bitten through and through. The wounds were somewhat inflamed. 

 Five other vipers thus bitten, did not die. Length of observation not mentioned. 

 Again, a portion of skin having been removed from the backs of four vipers, seven 

 vipers were made to bite them. None of the bitten animals died, and only one of 

 them was at all languid, and had a little swelling about the wound. Three vipers 

 were wounded in the back, and the wound filled with venom. The wounds in- 

 flamed, but did not swell. The animals seem to have been killed at the end of 

 several days. A viper was forced to bite itself; it did not die. Another was made 

 to bite on a piece of jagged glass, so that its mouth was wounded as the poison 

 flowed into it. On the seventh day the wounds were healed. 



M. Bernard' recently repeated Fontana's experiments, and found that a viper 

 which had been both bitten and inoculated artificially with venom, died on the 

 third day. Upon this experiment, M. Bernard criticizes Fontana, as having ob- 

 served the viper and pigeons together, and having concluded that, because the cold- 

 blooded animal was not afiected so soon as the other, that it was incapable of being 

 killed by the venom. As we have seen, however, some of Fontana's experiments 

 were observed during periods of time much greater than that required to destroy 

 the viper observed by M. Bernard. Thus, although Fontana was most probably 

 mistaken in his conclusions, he did not fail in the point criticized, from any glaring 

 neglect of continued observation. 



The American authorities upon this matter are brief, but decided. They refer 

 principally to the power of the snake to destroy itself, and to this point, indeed, my 

 own experiments have been directed, since it was plain that if the individual could 

 thus be made to kill itself, there could be no added difiicult}' in comprehending its 

 ability to kill its fellows. 



Besides including the general proposition, the question before us has a specific 

 interest, from the fact that snakes are often accidentally hurt about the mouth, and 

 that abrasions of this cavity must frequently occur. We are, therefore, called upon 

 to say why the snake sufiers so little from wounds on which a poison so deadly 

 to other animals must fall from time to time. 



Our own writers" state almost unanimously that the Crotalus is able to kill itself. 

 Without quoting them in full, it is enough to add that their experiments were 

 commonly made by switching a snake until it turned and struck itself Death is 

 usually described as following within a few minutes. 



At the close of a series of experiments on warm-blooded animals, I made use of 

 some of my largest snakes in the following manner : — 



Exjjeriment. — Temperature G5° to 75° F. A small snake about twenty-seven 

 inches long, was caught by the neck, and its tail placed in its mouth. It bit, but 

 did not wound. A portion of skin having been removed from the back, it was 



' Claude Bernard, Lemons snr les Efifets des Substances Toxiques, etc., IS.'iT, p. 291. 

 Dr. Brown-Sequard appears to have made experiments upon the Viper, but I have l)een uualjle to Gnd 

 his paper. 



= Burnett, p. 323. 



