96 INDIAN SNAKE POISONS, 



quantity of pale pinkish serum efiPused in the areolar 

 tissue, so that considerahle local swelling is common. 

 In all the cases I have examined, there has heen much 

 greater local change than could possibly be accounted 

 for by the mechanical injury. In those chronic cases 

 terminating fatally after incubation, the site of the 

 wound generally suppurates during the progress of the 

 disease, but this sometimes occurs when no fatal con- 

 dition is developed, though to a much smaller extent. 

 In one fatal case, also, the only local manifestation was 

 an indurated state of the part, which was found to be 

 highly infiltrated, and somewhat hypersemic in the centre. 



Effect of the Poison of the Bungaeus Fasciatus 

 ON the Nervous System. 

 In the acute form of poisoning by this snake, the 

 symptoms show clearly that the chief, if not the sole, 

 cause of death is the eflfect of the poison on the 

 nervous system. The earliest sign is often an unsteadi- 

 ness of gait, affecting all the limbs equally, attended 

 by slight clonic contractions of the muscles, rapidly 

 succeeded by paralysis, the respiration at the same time 

 beginning to fail. The pupils remain normal, but the 

 paralysis of the lips, tongue, larynx and pharynx is as 

 strongly marked as in cobra-poisoning. Vomiting also 

 occurs early. There is, in fact, a complete parallelism 

 in the effect of the poison of the cobra and that of the 

 Bungarus fasciatus in the acute form. 



