THE PHYSIOLOGY OF POISONING 215 
Edinburgh), we never succeed in obtaining immunity to the sub- 
cutaneous injection of a simple lethal dose, and no antitoxin is 
formed in the blood. 
The ptyalin of the saliva, pancreatic juice, and bile destroy 
Cobra-venom in vitro. We must, therefore, assume that these 
diastases are veritable agents of destruction for ingested venom. 
The intestinal microbes play no part, any more than the intestinal 
juice by itself. The gastric juice has very little effect. Papain is 
almost as active as the pancreatic juice. 
It had already been proved by Fraser, so long ago as 1895, that 
bile, after prolonged contact and in a sufficient dose, has a strongly 
destructive effect upon Cobra-venom; but, contrary to the opinion 
of this investigator, it is not antitoxic, for it possesses no preventive 
or curative property, and its effects are produced only in vitro. 
We see from what has been stated above, that venoms intro 
duced into a sensitive organism are capable of producing extremely 
complex effects upon the various tissues or humours. They act on 
the nerve-cells by their neurotoxin, on the endothehum of the 
blood-vessels by their hemorrhagin (Flexner and Noguchi), on the 
red corpuscles by their hemolysin, on the fibrin of the blood and 
muscles by their proteolytic diastase, and on the fibrin-ferment 
itself by their thrombase. 
They also act on the leucocytes, according to the experiments 
of Chatenay, performed under the direction of Metschnikoff, and 
according to those of Flexner and Noguchi,’ already cited. 
Thus we understand how complex must likewise be the means 
of defence that have to be employed in order to afford an effective 
protection against such poisons. 
The slightly intoxicated organism at first reacts by the inter- 
vention of the leucocytes ; a hyperleucocytosis is produced, accom- 
LA 
' Chatenay, ‘Les réactions leucocytaires vis-à-vis de certaines toxines,” 
Thèse Paris, 1894. 
? Flexner and Noguchi, ‘“ Snake-venom in Relation to Hæmolysis, Bacterio- 
lysis, and Toxicity,” Journal of Experimental Medicine, vol. vi., March 17, 1902. 
y , 
