164 VENOMOUS SNAKES AND THE PHENOMENA OF THEIR VENOMS 
masses. In dogs injected with pseudechis venom the number of erythrocytes 
quickly commences to diminish, in some cases to less than half of the original 
within a few hours. Leucocytopcenia is also striking, as in some instances 
the number of leucocytes diminished to an almost complete disappearance 
from the circulation. But after from 30 minutes to 5 hours they reappear 
almost as numerously as at first. Leucocytopcenia occurs to a trifling extent 
when the venom is subcutaneously injected. After a few days leucocytosis 
reaches its height, often 4 or 5 times the normal proportion. 
The bile contained hemoglobin, as Ragotzi found also in the case of cobra- 
venom injection. 
Cunningham demonstrated in several experiments that if the blood of an 
animal which has received a large dose of cobra venom, either intravenously 
or subcutaneously, be withdrawn from the body after death and allowed to 
clot, the serum which exudates from the clot is of a red color; also that, 
if a fowl has been employed, many free nuclei of the red cells are found on 
examining the blood at death; there has been, in fact, a considerable solution 
of the bodies of the red cells. Further, he has shown that if the dose of 
venom injected into a fowl is very large, namely, 0.1 too.3 gm., the blood at 
death contains a great abundance of free nuclei, and the remaining red cells 
appear deformed; and if the specimen be allowed to stand, at the end of a 
few hours complete destruction will have taken place. 
In 1898 Weir Mitchell and Stewart ' described the injurious effects exerted 
by the crotalus venom upon the erythrocytes and leucocytes of the blood of 
rabbits, snakes, monkeys, and man when mixed outside of the body. The 
observations were made under the microscope with sealed slide-prepara- 
tions. Hemolysis was observed with venom-blood mixtures if the venom is 
not too concentrated, but not with the blood containing an equal quantity of 
the fresh venom. 
Lamb (1903) confirmed the experiments of Cunningham on the destructive 
action of cobra venom im vivo upon the blood corpuscles of various animals. 
He also states the instances in case of man where cell-free sanguineous exudate 
was found around the point of snake bite. In a donkey receiving slightly 
over the minimal lethal dose of cobra venom he observed a blood-stained 
mucous discharge from the rectum. 
With daboia venom Lamb made a series of experiments to determine the 
effects of intravenous and subcutaneous injections of this venom into monkeys, 
rabbits, pigeons, horses, and donkeys, and obtained results which clearly 
demonstrate the destructive action of venom upon the corpuscles in vivo. 
Ante-mortem and post-mortem examinations of the condition of the blood 
of the venomized animals showed that the serum separated from the loose 
clots drawn a little before and after death were always stained with free 
hemoglobin. If cedema existed around the site of injection of the venom it 
was red color, but contained no red corpuscles. The urine was dark brown. 

1 Weir Mitchell and Stewart. A contribution to the study of the action of the venom of Crotalus ada- 
manteus upon the blood. Trans. Coll. Physicians of Philadelphia, 1897. 3d series, XIX, 105. 
