186 VENOMS 
medulla. But it is open to question whether these effects are not 
exclusively due to the lesions of the blood, which are here all- 
predominant; for no histological modification is observed in the 
cells of the central nervous system. 
I have made a number of experiments with a view to discover- 
ing whether the cerebral, bulbar, or medullary substance of animals 
susceptible to the action of Cobra-venom (rabbit, guinea-pig, fowl) 
possesses the property of fixing this venom as it fixes the toxin of 
tetanus (Wassermann and Takaki). I found that, on pounding up 
a little of the pulp of the cerebral hemispheres or bulb with doses 
of venom lethal in two hours for the control animals, the injection 
of the mixture, well washed and centrifuged in order to free it from 
all excess of non-fixed venom, always caused death, but with a 
retardation of from four to ten hours. We see, therefore, that 
partial fixation of the venom upon the nervous elements really 
takes place, but we cannot conclude from this that these elements 
exercise an antitoxic function, any more than in the case of tetanus, 
for animals that receive cerebral emulsions in one thigh and the 
dose of venom lethal in two hours in the other thigh, succumb at 
the same time as the controls. 
Major Rogers has made similar experiments with the venom 
of Enhydrina (HYDROPHIIDÆ), and has obtained the same result 
on employing the cerebral hemispheres of the pigeon.! 
Flexner and Noguchi,’ on their part, have compared, by aid 
of the method of intracerebral injections, the toxicity of the 
venom of Crotalus with that of the venom of the Cobra. On 
employing Cobra-venom heated to 75° C., they found that the 
convulsive and paralytic effects were immediate, contrary to what 
takes place after subcutaneous or intraperitoneal injections, but 
that the dose of venom necessary to produce death was the same 
' Proceedings of the Royal Society, vol. Ixxi., 1903. 
* “The Constitution of Snake-venom and Snake-sera,” University of Penn- 
sylvania Medical Bulletin, vol. xv., 1902, p. 345. : 
