228 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NAf URAL HISTORY SOCIETY, Vol. XIV. 



well as this action on the coagulability of the blood, Daboia venom, 

 somewhat similar to Cobra venom, has a very marked destructive 

 effect on the red-blood corpuscles. Further, Daboia venom has a 

 great destructive action on the capillary walls, making thom more 

 permeable to the blood they contain—a blood by its deficiency in 

 coagulability more ready to exude out. As a result of these various 

 effects on the blood and capillary walls, it comes about that bleeding 

 is very common in these chronic cases of Daboia poisoning. Thus, 

 around the site of the actual punctures or injections in experimental 

 cases there are a large bloody extravasation and much swelling. This 

 swelling spreads rapidly up the limb. The tissues all around the place 

 of injection die and offer a suitable pabulum for all sorts of bacteria. 

 Thus it happens that death in these cases usually results from some 

 bacterial poisoning, such as malignant oedema or general septicEemia. As 

 well as this local action hsemorrhage may take place from every- 

 orifice of the body — from the nose, from the mouth, from the bowel, or 

 from the kidneys and bladder. The blood is in a fl.uid condition and 

 clots badly, while the destruction of the small vessel walls allows of it 

 to exude easily. The blood-stained fluid which exudes contains 

 few red corpuscles ; the colouring matter of these has been dissolved 

 out and now stains the plasma. 



Such, then, is the picture of a typical cas6, either actual or experi- 

 mental, of chronic Daboia intoxication, and it is this state which 

 is usually seen to follow the bite of a Daboia iu the human subject. 



This condition can be and often is recovered from, the great 

 dano-er being, as I have indicated, a secondary bacterial infection. 



Thus, while I have said that a maal bitten by a fresh medium-sized 

 Cobra, if the snake succeeds in injecting even a modicum of its 

 poison, will invariably die if left untreated, it often happens that 

 authentic cases of bites from Daboia recover, even aftefT serious 

 hsemorrhages have occurred from many places. As I have said, I 

 have never seen paralysis in all my experiments with Daboia venom, 

 nor can I find any authentic record of such having occurred in actual 



cases. 



To sum up, then, it would appear that Daboia poison acts mainly, 

 if not entirely, on the circulatory apparatus— 



(1) It affects the coagulability of the blood. Injected directly 

 into the blood stream^ or in large dosee under the skin, it so increases 



