THEIE NATtJEE AND EFFECTS. 125 



the death of its poison-bearing agents. But it is 

 thoroughly in accordance with experience that dilute 

 solutions of chemical agents should be decomposed with 

 greater ease than concentrated ones, and this decompo- 

 sition would proceed gradually as the heat was continued. 

 The whole evidence, therefore, that is given by the 

 action of heat is strongly in favour of cobra-poison 

 being a chemical agent of very great stability of con- 

 stitution. 



In the chapter on dahoia-poison it was shown that 

 if that poison be heated to 100° C. it loses all power 

 of causing convulsions; hut this is not the whole of 

 the case, for if the poison be heated only to 80° C. 

 (176° F.) the same effect is produced. This change 

 is not due to the precipitation of albumen, for it occurs 

 if this is prevented by adding acetic acid, nor is it due 

 to the volatilization of any constituent of the poison, 

 for the products obtained in a receiver connected with 

 the heated solution, and kept at 0° C, were not 

 poisonous, but it seems to depend on the destruction of 

 a highly organised, easily decomposed agent, for the 

 addition of nitric acid diluted with its own bulk of 

 water also destroyed it. There can be no doubt, there- 

 fore, that it is a separate component of the poison, as 

 after its destruction the paralysis-producing power is 

 still present in the solution. Taken together with the 

 facts that the daboia has an additional gland on its 

 poison duct, it would seem to be a highly elaborated 



