214 VENOMS 
pancreatic juice. Herein is to be found the explanation of the fact 
that the non-poisonous snakes, although destitute of organs of 
inoculation, possess supralabial or parotid glands which produce 
venomous saliva. 
Experiments have been made by Ch. Féré! to determine the 
effect upon the development of the embryo of the introduction of 
venom into the albumen of the egg of the fowl. He found that 
83 per cent. of the embryos, developed in eggs intoxicated with 
0°05 milligramme of viper-venom and opened after being incubated 
for seventy-two hours, exhibited various anomalies in development. 
E.—Action oF VARIOUS DIASTASES UPON VENOMS. 
Venoms are modified or destroyed by certain normal diastases 
of the organism. It was shown long ago by Lacerda, Weir Mitchell, 
Sir Joseph Fayrer, and Lauder Brunton, that it is possible to 
introduce without danger into the stomachs of adult animals 
amounts of venom many times greater than the lethal dose. I have 
repeatedly verified this, but have nevertheless observed that young 
mammals, while being suckled, readily absorb venom by their 
alimentary canal, and succumb to the ingestion of doses scarcely 
larger than those which kill when subcutaneously injected. Here 
we have a very important fact, which once more proves how easily 
the intestinal mucous membrane of young animals is permeated 
by toxins. By my instructions Wehrmann? and Carriere,’ in my 
laboratory, have studied the modifications undergone by venoms 
in the alimentary canal of rabbits. We have seen that these 
animals can ingest without inconvenience doses of venom 600 times 
greater than the lethal dose, and that, if we cause these ingestions 
to be repeated several times, contrary to the assertion of Fraser’ (of 
' Comptes rendus de la Société de Biologie, January 11, 1896. 
2 Wehrmann, Annales de l'Institut Pasteur, 1897 and 1898. 
3 Carrière, ‘ Sur le sort des toxines et des antitoxines dans le tube digestif,” 
ibid., 1898, p. 435. 
4 British Medical Journal, 1895 and 1897. 
