PROCEEDINGS OF THE SOCIETY DURING THE QUARTER. 71 



feel certain that the stuffer was going to make a good recovery: and when it is 

 remembered that every symptom of snake-poisoning had disappeared, it must be 

 admitted that there was good cause for this opinion. Unfortunately, on the third 

 day fever set in, and also inflammation of the lungs, and the stuffer slowly sank 

 under these and died on the fifth day, in spite of everything that skilled medical 

 aid and constant and faithful attendance and nursing could do. 



As to the temporary recovery from the actual effects of the poison, it will be 

 evident that the amount of poison must have been less than in an ordinary bite. 

 Indeed, remembering that the ducts had been partly exched, it may surprise any 

 one that poison entered the wound at all. But this is accounted fur by the fact 

 that, although the duct was partly excised, the gland is still active, and the poison 

 which it secretes can make its way from the duct into the mouth, were it mixes 

 with the saliva, and becomes diluted. In the case of the stutter the small fang was 

 kept in the wound in the fold of skin for some minutes, during which the poisoned 

 saliva could act on the punctured wound. Had the snake been removed at once, 

 my impression is that very little, if any, poison could have entered the wound, and 

 certainly not enough to do any serious injury; but as the snake was kept in this 

 position for some minutes, with the muscles compressing the gland, and forcing 

 the poison into the mouth, it is not difficult to account for the poison which entered 

 the wound, and, through it, the system. 



And here an important question arises. One of the daily newspapers in referring 

 to this unfortunate case, expressing its disapproval of poisonous snakes being kept 

 in the V. and A. Museum saying that any one might see any day, in the streets, 

 the same reptiles rendered safe and harmless. The writer either did not know, Or 

 did not understand, that the snakes were believed to be harmless : that not only 

 were the same measures adopted which are taken by the snake-charmers to render 

 harmless the cobras exhibited in the public streets, but an additional safeguard was 

 adopted in excising part of the ducts. And the question I refer to is— are the 

 snakes exhibited in the streets perfectly harmless ? I do not think they are. No- 

 thing save the complete removal of the glands which secrete the poison can render 

 a poisonous snake harmless. It is true, that the perforate tooth, the hypodermic 

 syringe, as it is termed by Mr. Aitken in the chapter on the Hypodermatikosyringo- 

 phoroi in his "Tribes on my Frontier,'' is not there; but, as the poison is still 

 secreted, and as it nvust make its way through the duct or fistula into the mouth, a 

 bite with even the ordinary teeth, may be dangerous. I believe that such a bite has 

 resulted in death, and there are cases on record in which death has taken place after 

 such a bite. Since the unfortunate accident occurred at the Museum we have given 

 up altogether the practice of keeping live cobras, and I should advise every one who 

 sets some value on life to give cobras a very wide berth, no matter how positively 

 it may be asserted that any particular specimen has been rendered harmless. You 

 may see from these drawings how difficult a matter it would be to deprive a cobra of 

 its poison glands. They lie deep in the tissue at the side of the head, covered over 

 by the muscles which, by their contraction, compress the glands, and thus squirt the 

 poison in the gland through the duct, and along the perforation of the tooth, into 

 the wound, just at the moment when the animal strikes. Even without the perforated 

 teeth, there is still the poison gland, and although the poison, by mixing with 

 saliva, is less powerful than when undiluted, it is still there, and with all its dreaded 

 power to destroy life. 



