NATURE AND ANALYSIS OF THE POISONS. 135 
as known, the following table shows which kinds have caused 
the greatest proportion of deaths in the different districts, viz. : 
Central) Central | Nie Wis 
s i / > P ps 
Bengal.| Orissa. | Assam.| Oude. Trdia..(Provi'ts|Provites 
teas ss |e 959 |, 128 607 rE 854 
Me \) 160} 2 105 92 
Bung. cerul., 
Other snakes,. .| 348 52 12 20 37 63 
Not known, . .| 4752 | 168 64 473 32 606 986 
British Burmah. | Punjab. 
RN OR SE ahd Bee a aa ee, 
WeUOIA; >. s | : 
Hamadryad,. rf me Mapes stinices, Ee DED 
Hydrophis, . j Notknown, 6-5 ASS PE 
Dr. Fayrer says,* in all cases where the blood forms a firm 
coagulum after death the poison is of a Coluber, and in all 
cases where it remains perfectly fluid it is of a Viper. 
This point is not positively determined as yet. We may, 
however, take the Naja tripudians as heading the scale of 
those poisons whose action on the blood produces a coagulum, 
and the Crotalus as the synonym for the opposite class, whose 
action on the blood produces permanent fluidity ; it is prob- 
able that the action of all the other snake poisons ranges be- 
tween these two extremes. But under certain conditions the 
same kind of poison, taken from the same reptile, produces 
such widely different effects that sometimes it kills quickly, 
at other times it kills slowly, and during a certain annual 
period in the life of the reptile it does not produce death, but 
causes a partial septiceemia only. 
To explain, viz.: Just at the time when the snake begins 
* The Thanatophidia of India, by J. Fayrer, M.D. London: J.& A. 
Churchill, 1872. 
