98 INDIAN SNAKE POISONS, 



chart No. IX., depicts the chief changes that occur in 

 the usual course. They were taken from a fowl which 

 succumhed quickly to the effects. It will be seen that 

 at first there was slight quickening and increased 

 excursus, hut that .retardation and lessened movement 

 followed very soon, and that before convulsions occurred 

 the respiratory function was completely abolished. The 

 primary stimulation, however, does not appear to he 

 quite as great as in cobra-poisoning, and if Experiment I. 

 be examined, it will be seen that after the respirations 

 had been reduced from 36 to 20 by the poison, an 

 additional quantity of venom had no power to increase 

 the number of respirations. The fact that after retarda- 

 tion of the respiration has once occurred no acceleration 

 can be caused by more poison being given, shows how 

 dead to stimuli the respiratory centre rapidly becomes 

 under the influence of colubrine venom. In the nature 

 of the respiration during this form of poisoning, little 

 difference can be detected between it and that seen 

 under cobra-poisoning. The main distinction between 

 the two is the greater rapidity with which cobra-poison 

 acts ; however. Experiment V., where the dog died in 

 eighty-three minutes, seemed, in all essential particulars, 

 like a case of ordinary cobra-poisoning. 



