1869.] Zoology. 325 



Poison of Snakes. — M. Vulpian, of Paris, a well-known physi- 

 ologist, received some dry and some moist poison of the Cohra di 

 capello, wliich had been forwarded from India by Mr, Shortt. He 

 proceeded to try its efiects upon frogs, rats, and rabbits, and had 

 especially in view the object of testing the truth of Dr. Halford's 

 observations as to the extraordinary increase of white corpuscles in 

 the blood of bitten animals. In the condition in wliich he was able 

 to study it — a condition in which its activity is without doubt 

 notably diminished — M. Vulpian found that the poison appeared 

 to act on the central nervous system, the functions of which it httle 

 by httle suppressed, producing a state of somnolence of a remark- 

 able kind. In frogs it produces an effect similar to that induced 

 by curare ; it abohshes the action of motor nerves on the muscles 

 as regards contractihty. The movements of the true heart persist 

 some time after death, whilst those of the lymphatic hearts cease 

 very soon, as in frogs poisoned by curare. It is hardly necessary 

 to say that the results of the action of the poison of the Cobra cli 

 capello, relatively to the muscles and to the nerves, has nothing 

 peculiar about it ; for we know now more than twenty toxic sub- 

 stances which destroy the fimction of the motor nerves as regards 

 muscular contractihty. As to the blood, M. Yulpian has not con- 

 firmed the existence of the modification described by Halford, and 

 has seen nothing at all like it. He finds (and this is a peculiarly 

 interesting fact) that the buccal mucoiLs membrane is capable of 

 absorbing the poison, and that the same symptoms are produced as 

 when the poison is absorbed from a wound. Those who have 

 had the opportunity have lately been busy in examining snake- 

 poison. 



A writer in the ' Lancet ' details some experiments, in which he 

 failed to produce the effect on the blood described by Halford and 

 by Jones. It appears to us quite possible that the intensity of the 

 poison might aflect this condition very much, and that while being 

 sufficiently powerful to kill, M. Yulpian's specimens of poison may 

 have failed to produce the exaggerated leuccemic condition simply 

 from the loss of intensity or of a special quality acting on the 

 blood itseK or on the hoemopoietic glands. Some remarkable cases 

 of cure from snake-bite are reported in the medical journals, as 

 effected by Dr. Halford in Australia, by the injection of ammonia 

 subcutaneously and into the veins. Ammonia has long been used 

 as a stimulant in these cases, and the injection seems to be merely 

 a more direct method of application, the object being to counteract 

 the drowsiness which comes on. Colonel Showers records some 

 striking instances of cm'e from snake-bite effected by a native 

 Hindoo with certain herbs. If M. Vulpian is right in regarding 

 the mode of action of snake-poison as similar to that of curare, it 

 seems not improbable that vegetable principles should exist having 



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