OF THE VENOM OF TJIE RATTLESNAKE. 89 



The observation liere ended. The heart blood clotted very ni|)idly, but not very 

 firmly. In addition to these facts, I may observe that in dogs who survived the 

 first action of the venom, and died at the close of twenty-four or thirty-six hours, 

 the temperature of the rectum was found to be a degree or more below the normal 

 standard. On the near approach of death it fell rapidly. 



The experiments just related point plainly to the necessity of sustaining the 

 normal temperature of the body in severe cases of Crotalus bite. The value of 

 this precaution in other forms of poisoning has been admirably illustrated by M. 

 Brown-Sequard. All that he has said of narcotic and other depressing agents applies 

 with equal force to the cases before us.' 



Effect of Venom on the Blood. — The study of the vital fluid in cases of acute or 

 primary poisoning is of a merely negative value. An animal, and especially a 

 warm-blooded animal which dies within a minute or two, or after even a longer 

 time, presents us with none of those profound alterations of the blood which 

 characterize all instances of secondary poisoning. A pigeon, for instance, is stricken, 

 it droops, falls, and dies within thirty seconds, as may happen. Its blood is red, 

 and coagulates perfectly. Its blood-corpuscles are ideally healthy. The tissues 

 and fluids beyond the wound are, pathologically, as they would be after poisoning 

 by opium or woorara. In such a case no physiologist could impute the death to 

 an altered blood, and its positive or negative eflects on the essential nutrition and 

 oxygenation of nerve and muscle. The line of difference here between acute or 

 primary, and chronic or secondary jjoisoning by Crotalus venom, is drawn most 

 definitely, and although every possible variety of modified cases may occur, so as 

 to mingle the two modes of death into one deadly draught, the two sets of fatal 

 cases will still remain characteristically separated, and by no stronger difference 

 than that of the pathology of the blood in the respective instances. 



If in the secondary poisonings we examine first the obvious physical characters 

 of the blood, we shall observe that it is very dark in all parts of the body, but 

 somewhat redder in the left than the right heart. Both the color and the accumu- 

 lation in the veins seem to be due to the apnoea which ushers in the death, as is 

 clear from what I already have said, and from the experiments which I shall 

 presently relate in connection with the question of coagulation. 



As I have before stated, the longer the death is delayed, the more apt is the 

 blood to become incoagulable. So diffluent was it in some cases, that I have poured 

 it from glass to glass like water and kept it thus until it decomposed completely. 

 In other cases the heart contained a few loose and very weak clots, and in others 

 again, only rare shreds of coagulum were met with. 



What effect has the direct mixture of venom and blood ? what becomes of the 

 fibrin in venom poisoning ? and what is the cause of the change in the condition 

 of the fibrin ? are the material questions which naturally present themselves for 

 answer. 



Experiment. — One drop of venom was put on a slide and a drop of blood from a 



' Experimental Researches applied to Physiology and Pathology, by E. Brown-S6qiiard, M. D., of the 

 Faculty of Paris, etc. etc. N. Y. H. Bailliere, 1853, p. 26 el seq. 

 12 



