OF THE VENOM OP THE RATTLESNAKE. 77 



iinnginative powers must have been of the strongest. Other native authors state 

 that the poison has this or that taste, but do not directly assert that they have 

 acquired such knowledge by personal experiments. 



I have already stated that I found the venom tasteless. I did not venture to 

 swallow it, feeling no inclination to repeat the rash acts of the servants of Fontana 

 and Redi. 



As regards the question of absorption by a mucous surface, I once saw incident- 

 ally made, a rather curious experiment to which I have already referred. 



A large Crotalus swallowed a mouthful of its own venom, but, although watched 

 for several weeks, it seemed to have suffered no ill consequences. 



From the experiments of Harlan, Mangili, Russell, Davy and others, it seems to 

 be sufficiently proved that the unbroken mucous surface of the mouth has no 

 power to absorb the venom of serpents, and that the stomach also is incapable of 

 admitting this poison to the system in any form possessing noxious properties. 



Circumstances interfered to prevent me from extending my experiments on ab- 

 sorption to the length which T contemplated, but I hope to resume them at a future 

 period. I have, however, performed two experiments upon pulmonary absorption, 

 which possess so much interest that it would scarcely be proper to omit them. 



Experiment. — A large pigeon was placed between my knees and somewhat com- 

 pressed so as partially to empty the lungs. At this moment a small tube, well rounded 

 and with an opening on the side near the end, was thrust carefully through the glottis 

 and down into the trachea. As soon as the tube was in place I blew into its upper 

 orifice, thus discharging into the trachea its entire contents, consisting of about 

 two drops of venom with a little water. This manoeuvre, suddenly followed by 

 relaxation of the pressure on the respiratory organs of the bird, secured the passage 

 of the venom into the smaller bronchi, and perhaps even into the air- vesicles them- 

 selves. A good deal of wheezing and coughing ensued, and within ten minutes 

 the pigeon became drowsy, I'ocked to and fro, and at the close of thirty-eight 

 minutes fell down. Convulsions followed at the forty-third minute, and terminated 

 in death at the forty-ninth. 



P. M. Section. — The heart was still irritable and contained a little loosely 

 clotted blood on both sides. No lesions were visible, except in the lungs, both of 

 which contained large extravasations of dark blood soaked through their tissues to 

 such an extent as to make it impossible to say, whether or not, it was fluid or 

 coagulated. 



Experiment. — Another pigeon was treated in the same manner as the one last 

 described, except that the venom used was three weeks old, and amounted to two 

 drops. Death, without precedent convulsions, took place at the close of eight and 

 a half hours. The blood was diflJuent in every locality examined, and the left 

 lung contained a large extravasation of dark blood. 



The above cases render it probable that the delicate lung tissue offers no perma- 

 nent barrier to the passage of the venom. There is, however, a possibility of 

 fallacy in these experiments, and it is still desirable that they should be repeated 

 on a larger scale, and on higher animals. 



The Wo^ind. — The wound made by the fiing sometimes penetrates half an inch. 



