94 INDIAN SNAKE POISONS, 



between the infliction of the bite and the occurrence ot 

 any sjrmptom. It appears to vary from two to six days. 

 Nothing like this is known in cobra-poisoning, where, if 

 the victim does not succumb soon, a complete recovery 

 is to be anticipated ; or from daboia-poisoning, where the 

 haemorrhages that destroy life begin in a few hours, 

 though they may last for a lengthened period before the 

 sufferer's Mfe is extinguished. This interval, in this 

 chronic form of poisoning by the Bungarus fasciatus, 

 calls to mind strongly that similar period which occurs 

 between exposure to the poison and the development 

 of most infectious diseases. It is, in fact, a period of 

 incubation, and we thus see snake-poison allying 

 itself in its effects to those subtle contagia so remark- 

 able for their profound constitutional results. The 

 disease, in this chronic form of poisoning by the 

 Bungarus fasciatus, once developed, pursues its course, 

 no case under my observation having recovered after 

 the symptoms bad once begun. 



But even when the constitutional effects of the poison 

 of the Bungarus fasciatus do manifest themselves after 

 this period of incubation, they no longer resemble, in 

 any particular, the acute form of poisoning, either of 

 the Bungarus fasciatus or the cobra; but they have a 

 character and course of their own. The first thing 

 noticed is loss of appetite, with great depression, and 

 diminution of urinary secretion. Then there is slight 

 failure of the respiratory function, irregular but con- 



