VEGETABLE POISONS. 69 



woorara, occasion death simply by destroying 

 the functions of the brain. The following ex- 

 periment appears fully to establish the truth of 

 this conclusion. 



EXPERIMENT XXX. 



The temperature of the room being 58 Fah- 

 renheit's thermometer, I made two wounds in 

 the side of a rabbit, and applied to them some 

 of the woorara in the form of paste. In seven 

 minutes after the application, the hind legs were 

 paralysed, and in 15 minutes respiration had 

 ceased, and he was apparently dead. Two minutes 

 afterwards the heart was still beating, and a tube 

 was introduced through an opening into the 

 trachea, by means of which the lungs were in- 

 flated. The artificial respiration was made re- 

 gularly about 36 times in a minute. 



At first, the heart contracted 100 times in 

 a minute. 



At the end of 40 minutes, the pulse had risen 

 to 120 in a minute. 



At the end of an hour, it had risen to 140 

 in a minute. 



At the end of an hour and 23 minutes, the 

 pulse had fallen to 100, and the artificial respira- 

 tion was discontinued. 



At the commencement of the experiment, the 

 ball of a thermometer being placed in the rectum, 

 the quicksilver rose to 100; at the close of the 

 experiment it had fallen to 88^ 



r 3 



