GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS. 153 



CHAPTER XI. 



GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS. 



IT seems desirable at the close of a research such as we here record to offer a 

 few brief and general considerations in connection with some of the methods and 

 plans pursued in parts of the work, to group some of the conclusions, and to bring 

 together deductions which are necessarily scattered. A summary is also desirable 

 that we may set forth succinctly the essential actions of venom so as to make clear 

 the important differences in the toxic influences of globulins and peptones, to facili- 

 tate the application of what we have learned to the treatment of snake bite, and to 

 indicate new lines of research in the most promising directions. 



Our discovery of the existence of two distinct classes of poisons in venoms, that 

 both are doubtlessly represented in all venoms, only differing in relative propor- 

 tions and slightly in chemical and physiological properties, that they possess 

 activities akin but yet readily distinguished, and that they are proteids and closely 

 related to principles normally existing in mammalian blood, seems to us as of 

 grave importance. Our methods, however, for the separation of the poisonous 

 substances in venoms are open to improvement, because the processes are slow, 

 and since possibly one of the poisons at least is injured. It does not seem from 

 the results of our physiological studies with these poisons that any of them except- 

 ing the copper-venom-glolnlin have suffered, but that this has been affected seems 

 probable from its altered solubility, its comparatively low toxic power, and its 

 physiological peculiarities compared with the other globulins. Doubtless the 

 ordinary methods for the separation of the globulins from other proteids in solu- 

 tion could be used to advantage, but how far successful they may prove in isolating 

 the globulins from each other can only be determined by extended and careful 

 investigation. 



The plan we adopted in studying venoms and their active' principles on the 

 arterial pressure, pulse, and respiration is probably open to much criticism, but any 

 other course seemed unavoidable. Instead of studying all venoms together as 

 though they were absolutely identical compounds, although from different sources, 

 and each of the active elements, as for instance the peptones, together as identical, 

 it would doubtless have been preferable to have made a detailed investigation of 

 each venom, and of each of the active principles of that specimen. But this course 

 could not have been pursued satisfactorily because of the meagre supply of poison. 

 It was then simply a question as to whether we would take a very limited number 

 of experiments with each venom and each of its active principles, and base conclu- 

 sions thereon, or study the actions of all pure venoms together, of all the water- 



20 June, 1886. 



