NATURE AND ANALYSIS OF THE POISONS. 147 
arouse him ; in fact the countenance is like that of an epileptic 
after the convulsion. 
Do not the pallor and drowsiness indicate an anemic state 
of the brain, or rather a diminution of the arterial capacity 
and extension of the venous surface analogous to that which 
takes place in a less degree in ordinary sleep, according to the 
researches of Dr. Durham? In all the cases of cures cited, 
the functions of the cerebral ganglia and higher sensorium 
were for a time extinct. 
The sufferers were dead to both sound and light, and had 
absolutely no knowledge of the injections to which they were 
submitted. 
Now it is worthy of notice, that recent views ascribe the 
phenomenon of sleep to the using up of the previously stored- 
up oxygen in the blood, which is analogous to the accession of 
sleep in cases of snake-poisoning. 
Another symptom which deserves the greatest considera- 
tion is the extreme dilatation of the pupil, depending, as I be- 
lieve, on the central optic ganglia. 
Light is pouring into the eyeball, and yet no reflex acts are 
produced. An exactly similar condition affects the auditory 
ganglia; vibration after vibration shocks the tympanum, each 
falling silently upon the central ganglia. Sometimes this 
condition of the sensory ganglia, including probably the cor- 
pora striata, optic thalami, and corpora quadrigemina, exists, 
while the higher cerebral ganglia either remain a long time 
unaffected or escape entirely, in the latter case, recovery re- 
sulting; in the former, constituting a most dangerous state, 
especially when accompanied by swelling or pain in the neck. 
Mr. Hodgkinson, according to his own experience, after 
being bitten by a snake, says: “ There was insensibility to the 
effects of pungent salts when held to the nostrils, and to pinches 
inflicted by some of the lookers-on, who desired thereby to 
