DESTROYING THE ACTIVITY OF COBRA-POlSON. ' 147 



4.15 P.M. Quiet, crouching in the corner. 



4.24 „ Eestless, but does not seem to twitch ; cries like 

 the other guinea-pigs occasionally. 



About 6.0 the animal lay quiet, with occasional twitches, and 

 about 6.30 it died. 



In order to ascertain which substance would be most likely 

 to save the life of the animal by local application to the point 

 of injection, either by destroying the poison itself or by pre- 

 venting its absorption by the tissues, we applied chloride of 

 gold, permanganate of potash, chloride of platinum, and carbolic 

 acid locally, the method adopted being to inject . the poison 

 imder the skin of the leg, immediately afterwards to apply a 

 ligature tightly above that point, and then to make an incision 

 and apply the substance in just the same manner as we would 

 have done if the animal had actually been bitten. From the 

 following experiments, however, it will be seen that the absorp- 

 tion of the poison is so rapid that all local applications Were 

 useless. It should be noted that the quantity of poison we 

 employed was large, and it still remains to be seen whether 

 these local applications may turn the balance between life and 

 death when the quantity of the poison would be just sufficient 

 to kill in case of no remedy being applied. 



Experiment XVII. 



Guinea-pig weighing 1 lb. 



4.27J P.M. Injected 2 gr. 9 centigrammes of cobra-poison into 

 thigh, ligature applied immediately. 



4.29^ P.M. Solution of chloride of platinum applied. 

 . 4.31 „ Twitching violently. 



4.33 „ Twitching violently ; ligature remains on limb. 



4.40 „ Not worse; the ligature is evidently delaying the 

 action of the poison. 



4.47 P.M. Getting weaker. 



4.50 „ Convulsed. 



4.52 „ Dead. 



Death delayed in this instance. 



(95) L 2 



