1874.] Poison of Indian Venomous Snakes. 129 



membrane of the stomach. A case reported by Mr. Shircore, of Calcutta, 

 in which an infant, suckled by its mother after she had been been bitten 

 by a snake (species unknown), died in two hours after it had partaken of 

 the milk, shows that the poison is excreted by the mammary glands, and 

 with considerable rapidity ; for the child took the breast before any marked 

 symptoms had occurred in the mother*. Its excretion by the kidneys ap- 

 pears from an experiment of Mr. Richards, of Balasore, who found that 

 some urine from a dog poisoned by the bite of a sea-snake (Enhydrina 

 bengalensis} killed a pigeon in 22 hours after being hypodermically in- 

 jected f. Some saliva, which we obtained from the submaxillary gland of 

 a dog poisoned by cobra-venom, had no effect \vhen injected under the 

 skin of the thigh of a lark ; but Mr. Richards found that one drachm of 

 the greenish liquid which flowed .from the mouth of a dog poisoned by 

 cobra- venom killed a pigeon in two hours. As this fluid flowed con- 

 stantly from the mouth, and the animal was paralyzed and motionless, it 

 seems probable that, notwithstanding its colour, it was saliva and not bile. 

 As the poison-glands of the snake are modified parotid glands, we 

 should naturally expect the poison to be excreted by the salivary glands ; 

 and we think it possible that the immunity which poisonous snakes enjoy 

 from the effects of their own poison or that of another species (an im- 

 munity which is not shared by innocuous serpents, nor even by small in- 

 dividuals of a venomous species poisoned by a large dose of venom) may 

 be due, at least in some measure, to their power of excreting the inocu- 

 lated venom through their own poison-glands. We have, however, had 

 no opportunities of trying whether venomous serpents, after extirpation 

 of their poison-gland, succumb to the bite of others in the same way as 

 innocuous ones. 



On the Means of preventing Death from the bites of Venomous Snakes. 



In the case of all poisons, snake-venom included, there is a dose which 

 is insufficient to kill ; and animals may recover from it even after the 

 characteristic symptoms of the poison have been distinctly manifested. 



It has been clearly shown by Hermann that the real dose of any poison, 

 or, in other words, the quantity which is" actually circulating in the fluids 

 and operating on the tissues of the body, depends on two factors, viz. 

 the rapidity with which it is absorbed, and the rapidity with which it 

 is excreted. If absorption goes on more rapidly than excretion, the 

 poison accumulates in the blood and exercises its lethal action ; while the 

 quantity in actual circulation may be reduced to an infinitesimal amount 

 and deprived of all power for evil, if the excretion can keep pace with, or 

 go on more rapidly than, the absorption. Thus it is that curare kills an 

 animal when introduced into a wound ; for the poison is absorbed from the 

 wound more rapidly than it can be excreted by the kidneys. If placed in 

 the stomach, curare has usually no apparent action whatever ; for it is 

 * Thanatophidia, p. 43. t liidian Medical Gazette, May 1, 1873, p. 19. 



