EFFECTS OF SNAKE VENOM. 363 
was to cut out and throw away the discoloured flesh around the 
site of the poisoned arrow wound. 
The blood of an animal which has died of snake bite will kill 
if introduced into the blood of another. Dr. Fayrer transmitted 
the venom through three animals with fatal results. That is, 
he injected venom into one animal. Then he inoculated the 
second animal with the blood of the first. When this second 
animal was dying he took some of its blood and injected it into a 
third animal. All three died. 
The venom of a snake can be absorbed into the blood through 
the delicate membranes of the eye and cause death, as in ordinary 
snake bite. There is danger of this happening with the Ringhals 
or Spitting Snake. If death does not occur, serious damage to 
the eyes or permanent blindness might ensue. 
Venom acts on cold-blooded animals, viz. reptiles, but not 
so rapidly as is the case with warm-klooded creatures. Birds 
and small animals usually die within a few minutes of being 
bitten by a very venomous snake. 
Dr. Fayrer says the venom of adult deadly snakes does not 
affect each other. This is only sometimes so, not by any means 
always. Experiments in proof of this are detailed elsewhere in 
this book. 
On several occasions I have removed the poison glands from 
dead Cobras and Puff Adders after the bodies had become 
slightly stale, sufficiently so to give off a disagreeable odour. 
The venom was squeezed out of the glands and injected into 
fowls under the skin of the thigh and wing. No poisonous 
symptoms followed. I concluded from these experiments that 
after the death of a snake the venom rapidly deteriorates and 
entirely loses its toxic properties when decomposition of the flesh 
of the reptile begins. 
Dr. Giinther says: “‘ The degree of danger depends but 
little on the species of snake which has inflicted the wound, but 
rather on the bulk of the individual, on the quantity of its poison, 
on the temperature and on the place of the wound.” 
On the contrary, there is a considerable difference in the 
poisonous properties of the venoms of the different species of 
snakes. The venom of a Cape Cobra or Mamba, for instance, is 
swift and sure. That of the Puff Adder is slow in comparison. 
In toxic power, one drop of the venom of the Cape Cobra, Mamba, 
