ON THE NATURE AND PHYSIOLOGICAL 

 ACTION OF THE CROTALUS-VOISO^ AS 

 COMPARED WITH THAT OF NAJA 

 TRIPUDIANS AND OTHER INDIAN 

 VENOMOUS SNAKES ; 



ALSO 



INVESTIGATIONS INTO THE NATURE OF THE INFLUENCE 

 OF NAJA- AND CROTALUS-POliSO}^ 0"^ CILIARY AND 

 AMCEBOID ACTION AND ON VALLISNERIA, AND ON 

 THE INFLUENCE OF INSPIRATION OF PURE OXYGEN 

 ON POISONED ANIMALS. 



By T. Laudee Brunton, M.D, F.E.S., Sc.D., M.RC.P., and 

 J. Fayrer, C.S.I., M.D., F.RC.P. Lond, F.R.S.E., 

 President of the Medical Board at the India Office. 



(Reprinted from the Proceedings of the Royal Society, No. 159, 1875.) 



In our former papers we described the general phenomena 

 accompanying the physiological action of cobra- and Daboia- 

 poisons on warm-blooded animals, reptiles, fishes, and inverte- 

 brata. We propose in this paper to compare with these the 

 action of the Crotalus-\\v\x.^ in its general effects on life, on the 

 functions, organs, and tissues, and especially as it affects the 

 blood and vessels as regards a marked influence in causing 

 haemorrhages and extravasations of blood generally and locally ; 

 and, further, to examine the action of snake-poison generally on 

 ciliary and amoeboid movements — or that which represents its 

 action on contractility, apart from that which is caused through 

 the medium of the nerve-centres and nerve-distribution. 



It appears that there is little difference between the physio- 

 logical effects of the crotaline or vipurine and the colubrine 

 virus. The mode in which death is brought about is essentially 

 the same in all ; though there are evidences, even when allowing 

 for individual peculiarities, that the action is marked by some 



