NOTES AND CORRESPONDENCE, 
Experiments on the Poison of the Cobra-di-Capella.—The . 
melancholy accident which so lately happened with the cobra- 
di-capella induced me to make some experiments and observa- 
tions upon the action of the reptile’s poison, and they have 
proved so eminently interesting that Iam induced to send 
you an epitome of them. 
I have to state, then, that when a person is mortally bitten 
by the cobra-di-capella, molecules of living “‘ germinal”’ mat- 
ter are thrown into the blood, and speedily grow into cells, 
and as rapidly multiply, so that in a few hours millions upon 
millions are produced at the expense, as far as I can at pre- 
sent see, of the oxygen absorbed into the blood during inspi- 
ration; hence the gradual increase and ultimate extinction 
of combustion and chemical change in every other part of the 
body, followed by coldness, sleepiness, insensibility, slow 
breathing, and death. 
The cells which thus render in so short a time the blood 
unfit to support life, are circular, with a diameter on the 
average >-';, of an inch. ‘They contain a nearly round 
nucleus of =,, of an inch in breadth, which, when further 
magnified, is seen to contain other still more minute sphe- 
rules of living “ germinal” matter. In addition to this, the 
application of magenta reveals a minute coloured spot at 
some part of the circumference of the cell. This, besides 
its size, distinguishes it from the white, pus, or lymph 
corpuscle. 
Thus, then, it would seem that, as the vegetable cell 
requires for its growth inorganic food and the liberation of 
oxygen, so the animal cell requires for its growth organic 
food and the absorption of oxygen. Its food is present in the 
blood, and it meets the oxygen in the lungs; thus, the whole 
blood becomes disorganized, and nothing is found after death 
but dark fluid blood, the fluidity indicating its loss of fibrine, 
the dark colour its want of oxygen, which it readily absorbs 
on exposure after death. Hii 
