NOTES AND MEMORANDA. 189 



the following " reply " of the former : * — " Ma classification est ce 

 qu'elle est. Acceptez-la ou rejetez-la, cela vous regarde. Pour moi 

 elle est excellente ! " 



Bacteria in the Poison of Serpents. — M. Lacerda calls the atten- 

 tion of the French Academy to a fact he observed at the physiological 

 laboratory at Rio de Janeiro. 



Contrary to the general belief that the venomous matter is 

 nothing but a poisonous saliva acting like soluble ferments, he observed 

 facts which prove, in his opinion, that it contains figured ferments, 

 whose analogy with bacteria was remarkable. Subjecting a snake to 

 chloroform, he extracted from it a drop of its poison on a glass 

 plate, previously washed in alcohol and slightly warmed. Imme- 

 diately placing it under the Microscope, a kind of protoplasmic 

 filamentous matter was seen, formed of an aggregation of cells, 

 arranged in an arborescent form like certain Lycopodiacese. 



Gradually the filament (enlarged where the spores are) is dis- 

 solved and disappears, and the spores are set at liberty, assuming a 

 linear arrangement. Then, if the conditions of the surrounding 

 medium are favourable to their development, they swell and enlarge 

 sensibly, pushing out, after a time, a kind of small tube, which quickly 

 lengthens. This soon sej^arates, and forms another sj)ore, which is 

 reproduced in the same way. 



When these si^ores have attained a certain size, a filament is 

 observed in their interior, which becomes more and more marked, 

 and presents here and there ovoid and very refractive corpuscles ; in 

 a short time the protoplasm of the spore is retracted, its membrane 

 is dissolved, and the corpuscles are set at liberty to continue after- 

 wards the same process of reproduction. 



The spores have, however, two principal modes of multiplication — 

 by scission and by internal nuclei. In the blood of animals killed by 

 the bite, the following phenomena were observed : — 



The red globules began by showing small brilliant points on 

 the surface of the disk, which sometimes formed projections and 

 became more and more numerous. By following attentively the 

 different phases of the change, he succeeded in seeing the globule 

 completely destroyed, and replaced by numerous ovoid very brilliant 

 corpuscles, endowed with spontaneous oscillatory movement. Some- 

 times they were not disengaged from the globular mass, but remained 

 enclosed within it, and the globules became fused with each other, 

 forming a sort of amorphous very diffluent paste. 



The animals in which a hypodermic injection was made of the 

 blood, immediately after the death of the animal bitten, all died in a 

 few hours, with almost the same symptoms, and their blood always 

 showed the same changes remarked in animals directly poisoned. 



M. Lacerda also ascertained that alcohol injected under the skin, 

 or introduced through the mouth, is the real antidote against this 

 ferment. 



In presenting this paper, M. de Quatrefages added that in his 



* ' Comptes Eendus,' vol. Ixxxvii. p. 255. 



