Xii APPENDIX. 



5. Symptoms of poisoning after an effective bite, are visible 

 after the lapse of a few seconds only, and should the poison have 



.penetrated a large vessel, death may result within the minute, 

 though such a case is of course i^re. 



6. The bite of a poisonous snake seems to exercise no influ- 

 ence on another poisonous snake, of the same family or ou itself, 

 but is fatal, though slowly, to a harmless snake, 



7. The most deadly poison seems to be that secreted by the 

 two Najas and Russell's viper, and scarcely less potent is that of 

 the Echis, the Bungari, and Hydrophidse. The poison of the 

 Indian Crotalidse however, though certainly occasionally fatal, is 

 not perhaps usually so, and there is always fair presumption of 

 recovery from the bite of our green vipers. Trimeresurus, &c. 



8. Specific remedies or antidotes for snake-poisoning there 

 are none. Where the bite has been, from any cause only parti- 

 ally effective, diffusible stimulants as ammonia and alcoholic mix- 

 tures may be resorted to with benefit, to aid the flagging powers 

 ofHfe. 



9. Cases have often occurred of men bitten by harmless 

 snakes exhibiting symptoms of most alarming prostration, and 

 being reduced to a moriband condition through fear only, so 

 that every endeavour should be made to secure the snake, as its 

 recognition as a harmless species is all that is wanted in such 

 case, to effect a cure. 



In the Madras Monthly Journal of Medical Science for Novem- 

 ber 1870, Dr. E. Nicholson has a Paper on some popular errors 

 regarding Indian snakes. In correcting these Dr. Nicholson does 

 not escape some inaccuracy himself, as where he describes the 

 tongue as " capable of rapid and vibrating protrusion through a 

 chink in the rostral shield." This is, however, no doubt merely 

 the result of a clumsy and inaccurate mode of expression, as it 

 would be if a man were described as protruding his tongue through 

 a chink in his upper lip. Dr. Nicholson's views, however, on the 



