HiEMORRHAGE INTO THE TISSUES. 369 



General Tendency of Viperine Venom. 



The tendency of Viperine venom is to produce a gradual and 

 general paralysis of the nerve centres which causes a feeble action 

 of all the vital functions. If the dose injected be a fatal one, 

 this slowing-down action progresses steadily but surely until 

 death takes place. The venom of Viperine snakes contains a 

 powerful poison known as a fibrin-ferment causing the blood to 

 clot. There are a few exceptions, for instance, some North 

 American Crotalinae. If the venom be injected direct into a 

 vein in sufficient quantity in reptile, mammal or man, coagulation 

 or clotting of the blood takes place, followed at once by death. 



However, when the venom is injected into the muscular 

 tissues, as is usually the case in bites from snakes, the poison is 

 not absorbed with sufficient rapidity to cause coagulation until 

 after death except in small animals. 



Nature's Resistance. 

 Nature sets up a resistance against all foreign substances 

 when introduced into the body, endeavouring to overcome and 

 cast them out again. In those cases where she fails, the dose 

 has been too large, or the vitality and mechanism of the body 

 is more or less impaired by disregard of the laws of hygiene. 

 The habitual indulgence in alcohol is a potent factor in the 

 breaking down of the natural inherent power of the body to 

 withstand and overcome any form of disease or poisoning. 

 Habitual moderate drinkers of alcoholic liquors succumb rapidly 

 even to a small dose of snake venom — a dose not sufficient to 

 produce serious symptoms in a non-drinker. Animals dosed 

 with alcohol for a few months, given in regular doses, died 

 rapidly when injected with a small dose of snake venom, showing 

 clearly that alcohol destroys the inherent vital resistance to 

 snake venom, as medical science informs us it does with all 

 forms of disease or ordinary blood-poisoning. 



HiEMORRHAGE INTO THE TISSUES. 



A characteristic action of Viperine venom is to cause hae- 

 morrhage into the tissues in various parts of the body. A toxic 

 property in the venom acts upon the walls of the capillary blood 

 vessels, causing expansion of their cells, or, to put it in scientific 

 terms, " a dissolution of their continuity." This effect of the 



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