DR. TH. NEUMANN. 109 



began to swell. The swelling went on until the shape of 

 a human being had entirely disappeared, and only an 

 immense ball or lump of hideous color presented itself 

 to the astonished eyes of the frightened bystanders. 

 Nobody ventured to put this mass, which went on in- 

 creasing in size, on the funeral-pyre, and every one made 

 his salute in the flight." 



We need not emphasize that such stories cannot 

 possibly be true at least as they are reported ; the 

 accidents themselves may have been true, but the 

 author may, just according to the fashion in which 

 writers indulge nowadays, have exaggerated them 

 in order to make a greater impression on his readers. 



To-day we know better what happens when somebody 

 is bitten by a poisonous snake ; we know not only the 

 incidents of such a dire occurence, but also the feelings 

 and sentiments of the wounded, and we are able to give 

 a reliable explanation of nearly every phase of the event. 

 Before investigating the effect of snake poison as it is 

 coming out of the poison-gland and injected by means 

 of a bite, or injected into the blood artificially, it would 

 be well to consider at first the effect of its comj)onents, 

 the venom peptone and the venom globulin, as we shall 

 be able then to account much better for the effect of 

 both combined, i. e. of the unaltered poison. 



Venom peptone alone put under the skin of a living 

 animal causes only slight local injury ; after some time, 

 however, the tissues soften as if they were melted or dis- 

 solved, a horribly swift putrefaction occurs, and at the 

 same time the breath sustaining nerve-centres become 

 weak, the muscles which move the chest cease to work, 

 the animal dies from failure to breathe ; while the 

 changes in the blood are by no means remarkable. 



Venom globulin has an entirely different effect. At 

 the spot where we inject it, the vessels give way and 

 pour out blood which cannot clot, and this change by 



65 



