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PHYSIOLOGY AND TOXICOLOGY 



of this process on the sixth day, the bird died, probably of mere exhaustion and 

 constitutional irritation. 



Exiwriment. — Two pigeons were bitten by a snake which had made frequent and 

 recent use of its fangs. Both birds were purposely exposed in such a way that they 

 were bitten in the thigh. Both were enfeebled by the poison and seemed disposed to 

 sleep. One of them sunk slowly, lower and lower, until its head touched the 

 table, when it rolled on its side. It died without convulsions nearly eleven hours 

 after the bite. The second pigeon, which was also the last bitten, died in violent 

 convulsions with the head thrown backwards, during the eighth hour. 



P. 31 Seciion.~ln neither of these birds was the blood coagulated, nor did it 

 pass into that state upon exposure. In the pigeon first struck the pericardium was 

 very full of serous blood, but no other organ was altered. In the second pigeon, 

 the lungs, air passages, and mouth were full of blood, the mucous walls of the 

 stomach were deeply congested in spots, and the peritoneal surface of the small 

 intestines was marked with star-like points of extravasated blood. 



Experiment— K pigeon was struck in the back by a small snake, only one fong 

 entering. The bird was placed on the table, where it instantly sought a corner and 

 in ten minutes fell into the usual stupor with jerking, abrupt respiration. This 

 condition seemed to lessen an hour later, but only for a time, and the bird finally 

 sinking down, became weaker and weaker, and died without convulsions at the 

 close of five hours and a half. The pupils gradually contracted before death, and 

 suddenly dilated afterwards. 



P. M. Section. — The wound in the back was dark, and a little thin dark blood 

 oozed from it. The tissues around it for an inch or more, were soaked with ex- 

 travasated blood, which had even passed through between the ribs, so as to stain 

 the tissues behind the intestines and crop. The heart was large and full of per- 

 fectly fluid blood. No other lesions were observed, except that the pericordial 

 serum was a little bloody. 



My chief reason for recording at length the cases above reported, is to show 

 the great increase in the internal lesions which occurs when the venom is long in 

 killing the animal. Among these changes, it was found, as a general rule, that the 

 blood was most aflected, and least coagulable, the longer the death was delayed. 



I have not thought it necessary to report in full the whole of the numerous cases 

 of the malady in the pigeon. In some instances, the birds recovered from the 

 immediate effect of the poison to die of the secondary lesions induced by it. In 

 others, the death was sudden and early, and in a third class it was delayed for a 

 few hours. All of these find illustration in the cases already quoted. One point, 

 however, appeared to me to demand further attention. 



When a number of any class of animals are poisoned, certain phenomena and 

 lesions occur constantly, others exceptionally ; and this is true of what are usually 

 known as diseases, as well as of more easily studied cases of poisoning. To illus- 

 trate this, I have selected seven cases of a fatal character in pigeons, none of which 

 have been reported in the foregoing pages. To save space, I have presented them 

 in tabular form, so as to show, at a glance, the variety of symptoms and patho- 



