NATURE AND ANALYSIS OF THE POISONS. 125 
itself; but did not die. Another was made to bite upon a 
piece of jagged glass so that its mouth was wounded as the 
poison flowed into it. On the seventh day the wounds were 
healed. 
“M. Bernard* recently repeated Fontana’s experiments, and 
found that a viper which had been both bitten and inoculated 
artificially with the venom, died on the third day. Upon 
this experiment M. Bernard criticizes Fontana, as having ob- 
served the viper and pigeons together, and having concluded 
that, because the cold-blooded animal was not so soon affected 
as the other, it was incapable of being killed by the venom. 
As we have seen, however, some of Fontana’s experiments 
were observed during periods of time much greater than that 
required to destroy the viper observed by M. Bernard. Thus, 
although Fontana was most probably mistaken in his con- 
clusions, he did not fail in the point criticized, from any glaring 
neglect of continued observation. 
“The American authorities upon this matter are brief, but 
decided. They refer principally to the power of the snake to 
destroy itself, and to this point, indeed, my own experiments 
have been directed, since it was plain that if the individual 
could thus be made to kill itself, there could be no added difhi- 
culty in comprehending its ability to kill its fellows. 
“ Besides including the general proposition, the question 
before us has a specific interest, from the fact that snakes are 
often accidentally hurt about the mouth, and that abrasions 
of this cavity must frequently occur. We are, therefore, 
called upon to say why the snake suffers so little from wounds 
on which a poison so deadly to other animals must fall from 
time to time. 
* Claude Bernard, Lecons sur les Effets des Substances Toxiques, &c., 
1857, p. 291. 
