SS2 Action of vegetable poisons, 



almost instant death, when injected into the jugular vein of 

 a rabbit, be found to militate against this conclusion; when 

 we consider how short is the distance, which, in so small 

 an animal, the blood has to pass from the jugular Tein to 

 the carotid artery, and the great rapidity of the circulation ; 

 since in a rabbit under the influence of terrour, during 

 such an experiment, the heart cannot be supposed to act 

 so seldom as three times in a second. 



I have made no experiments to ascertain through what 

 medium other poisons, when applied to wounds, affect the 

 vital organs, but frem analogy we may suppose, that they 

 enter the circulation through the divided blood-vessels. 



ly. 



Death from de- The facts already related led me to conclude, that alcohol, 

 Lnctions of the ^^^^ essential oil of almonds, the juice of aconite, the oil of 

 braia. tobacco,' and the vvoorara, occasion death simply by de- 



stroying the functions of the brain. The following ex- 

 periment appears fully to establish the truth of this con- 

 clusion. 

 Experiment 30. Exp. 30. The temperature of the room being 58° of 

 Fahrenheit's thermometer, I made two wounds in the side 

 of a rabbit, and applied to them some of the woorara in 

 the form of paste. In seven minutes after the application, 

 the hind legs were paralysed, and in fifteen minutes respi- 

 ration had ceased, and he was apparently dead. Two mi- 

 nutes afterward the heart was still beating, and a tube was 

 introduced through an opening into the trachea, by means 

 of which the lungs were inflated. The artificial respiration 

 was made regularly about thirty-six timesin a minute. 



At first, the heart contracted one hundred times in a mi- 

 nute. 



At the end of forty minutes, the pulse had risen to one 

 hundred and twenty in a minute. 



At the end of an hour, it had risen to one hundred and 

 forty in a minute. 



At the end of an hour and twenty-three minutes, the 

 pulse had fallen to a hundred, and the artificial respiration 

 was discontinued. 



At the commencement of the experiment, the ball of a 

 thermometer being placed in the rectum; the quicksilver 



