THEIE NATURE AND EFFECTS. 41 



poisoning affects accommodation cannot well be known, 

 and what evidence there is appears to be against its 

 being affected. The eye retains its sensitiveness, and 

 the eye-lid the power of closing, for some time after 

 Most other parts are paralysed. But in the human 

 subject drooping of the upper eye-lid is often an early 

 symptom of the action of the poison. 



On secretion cobra-poison appears to have consider- 

 able influence. It seems as if most secreting structures 

 were stimulated by it. The lachrymal glands act freely 

 during cobra-poisoning. Salivation is a most marked 

 and constant symptom; it is very rarely, indeed, absent 

 in dogs, and it appears to be equally common in man. 

 In dogs, the saliva often runs from the mouth literally 

 in streams; nor in man does it seem much less copious. 

 Should only a small quantity of poison have entered 

 the system, salivation may be the only symptom. The 

 whole of the mucous tract is also apparently in an active 

 state of secretion. After the stomach has been tho- 

 roughly emptied by vomiting, the animal will often bring 

 up repeatedly large quantities of mucus, and mucous dis- 

 charges are also frequently evacuated from the rectum. 

 The respiratory mucous membrane, too, participates. 

 Mucous secretion sometimes flows from the nose, and the 

 air-tubes are not unusually found bathed in fluid. Of its 

 action on the liver and kidneys it is very difiicult to get 

 evidence, as the time before death is generally so short; 

 in the more chronic cases sometimes the kidneys appear 



