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nued cold, and painful when pressed, with several vesications near 

 the elbow. The skin of the whole arm had a livid appearance, simi- 

 lar to what is met with in the dead body after putrefaction has begun 

 to take place. 



On the third day in the morning his pulse was scarcely percepti- 

 ble ; his extremities were cold ; and the vesications were larger : but 

 the swelling of the arm was diminished, and he had sensation in it 

 down to the fingers. On the fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth, and 

 ninth days the swelling continued subsiding, but more painful ; and 

 his pulse rising in strength, and diminishing in frequency. But on 

 the tenth, his pulse had increased, and the arm was again swelled 

 and inflamed. On the twelfth a large slough began to separate from 

 the inside of the arm, below the axilla ; and on the following day a 

 large abscess had formed on the outside of the elbow, and discharged 

 a quantity of reddish matter, with slough of cellular membrane 

 floating in it. 



On the sixteenth, it appeared that mortification had taken place on 

 the skin near the axilla ; and on the eighteenth he died. 



The body was examined after death, and the appearances on dis- 

 section are described by Mr. Home. The most remarkable circum- 

 stance observed, was the entire separation of the skin from the 

 muscles of the arm, with the exception of two or three, to which 

 it still adhered imperfectly by a dark-coloured cellular membrane. 

 The fluid in the pericardium, and blood in the aorta, had an un- 

 usual frothy appearance. 



In addition to the foregoing case, Mr. Home adds an account 

 which had been sent from India to the late Dr. Russel, of a Sepoy, 

 60 years of age, who had been bitten by a Cobra di Capello, on the 

 back part of the hand, in whom the symptoms were extremely similar 

 to those which occurred in the case above described ; pain, faintness, 

 sickness, with a quick and feeble pulse, swelling, discolouration, vesi- 

 cation, abscess, a copious dark and foetid discharge, continuing for 

 about a week ; after which the man gradually recovered, excepting 

 that one finger remained permanently extended. 



Mr. Home also gives an account of two experiments which he 

 made in the West Indies, on a couple of rats ; the first of which, 

 after being bitten by a venomous snake, died in one minute after the 

 bite ; and it is remarked, that the cellular membrane under the skin 

 of the side bitten, was entirely destroyed. 



The second rat, which was bitten one quarter of an hour after- 

 wards by the same snake, was not so soon affected by the bite ; and 

 bit the snake so violently in the neck, as to kill it in ten minutes. 

 The rat itself continued lively for nearly six hours, and then died . 



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