24 SNAKE-POISON AND ITS ACTION. 



dark condition which it presents after death, and 

 which has been taken as prima facie evidence of the 

 direct blood-poisoning action of snake virus by one and 

 all of previous investigators.. 



That under the powerful combination of causes, 

 each of which 'is in itself sufficient to endanger life, 

 and greatly intensified as paresis gradually deepens 

 into paralysis, the heart, even of large animals, suc- 

 cumbs in a comparatively short time, may be readily 

 understood. 



The blood-pressure, under the circumstances just 

 detailed, must necessarily be nil. Observations by 

 means of the sphygmograph at the bedside of a person 

 suffering from snake-poison are scarcely feasible, 

 except, perhaps, in a hospital, and thus far are not on 

 record. We must, therefore, once more fall back on 

 Feoktistow's experiments, which show that even the 

 smallest doses (0'02 to 0'04 mllgr.) of the dried 

 poison per kilo injected into the vein of a cat caused a 

 fall in the blood-pressure almost immediately, without 

 influencing either pulse or respiration, but that two to 

 four mgr. were sufficient to reduce the blood-pressure 

 to zero and bring on collapse, infusions of blood only 

 raising it temporarily. Of drugs raising the blood- 

 pressure he found ammonia the most effective, but only 

 after slight doses of the poison ; after lethal ones it 

 had no effect whatever on the blood pressure but 

 greatly increased the hsemorrhagic process in all 

 internal organs. This important observatioli should 



