BLOOD-DISINTEGRATION AND POISONS. \)\) 



which has already been referred to, has been noted by Kohn- 

 horn. 62 



Hydrocyanic acid causes the blood to assume a dark, 

 venous hue. Wood refers to Gaethgens, who found that the 

 blood of the first stage of poisoning clearly showed the absorp- 

 tion bands of oxyhaemoglobin under the spectroscope, while 

 Preyer demonstrated that "the dark blood of the advanced stage 

 gives only the lines of reduced haemoglobin/' In truth, this 

 poison is the most violent of the pharmacopoeia and the more 

 advanced stages of blood-disintegration would doubtless occur 

 were the victim to live long enough. Mercury is stated to cause 

 the blood to suffer very decidedly, becoming fluid and having 

 its power of coagulation impaired. Wright found its solid con- 

 stituents notably diminished, including albumin, fibrin, and the 

 red corpuscles, and noted that it contained a quantity of foetid 

 fatty material. In bichloride poisoning the urine is sometimes 

 bloody. Physostigmine poisoning, according to Fraser, causes 

 the blood after death to coagulate slowly and loosely, the red 

 corpuscles presenting various irregularities in outline. The 

 blood of animals killed with quinine was found by Bonome 

 and Arverdi, Magendie, Monneret, Melier, and Baldwin to be 

 dark, defibrinated, fluid, and incapable of forming a clot. 

 Briquet and Hare, who observed that this alteration was not 

 constant, probably used smaller doses. 



The next step in the process of haemolysis is the forma- 

 tion of methcemogloHn, which gives the blood a chocolate or 

 dirty-brown color, as shown by Gamgee. Free haemoglobin was 

 found by Hayem to be more sensitive than corpuscular haemo- 

 globin to methaemoglobinizing substances; and as Pugliese 

 observed that the normal temperature of the body, 37 C., 

 favored haemoglobinization, the conclusion of Carreau that an 

 acute methasmoglobinaemia represents the stage of blood-dis- 

 integration brought on by snake-venoms seems warranted. 

 This author 63 states that the Martinique viper (fer de lance) 

 causes the blood to become very dark almost black "prune- 

 juice like," to use his words. That rnetha3inoglobm was present 

 in abundance was proven spectroscopically. Pugliese has also 



B - Kohiihorn: Lancet, i, 583, 1876. 

 63 Carreau: Semaine Medicale, vol., 1893. 



7 



