48 INDIAN SNAKE POISONS, 



respiration has been performed for some time, it is not 

 unusual for blood to be present in the urine ; but if the 

 kidneys be examined in these cases the wonder will be, 

 not that blood was found in the urine, but that any 

 urine was secreted at all to mix with the blood, sg 

 great is the renal congestion. This circumstance, 

 therefore, can hardly be taken as evidence of blood 

 change. 



In spite, then, of occasional discharges of blood 

 from mucous surfaces, and that the blood of man is 

 generally found fluid after death, if we take into con- 

 sideration the facts that death, except from nerve 

 symptoms, is unrecorded ; that after the subject has 

 recovered from the nerve effects, he at once regains his 

 usual health, sequelae being unknown, at least if we 

 trust the available evidence — always excepting the local 

 results of cobra-bite which are most severe ; and that 

 in the vast majority of cases there is no symptom of 

 serious blood-poisoning even during the occurrence of 

 the nerve symptoms ; also that the kidneys give no 

 evidence of altered relation to the blood ; and that, as a 

 rule, the coagulability of the blood is not destroyed in 

 animals : we may conclude that though cobra-venom is 

 a nerve poison of surpassing deadliness, as a blood poison 

 it is not an agent of much power. 



