NATURE AND ANALYSIS OF THE POISONS. 129 
of which I have been told rattlesnakes had stricken them- 
selves, 
“One of the factors in Experiments 5, 6, and 7, and one 
which has been too much neglected, is the temperature, which 
in my own cases was very moderate during the day, and fell 
a good deal lower during the night, the observations having 
been carried on during a cool period in September, 1859. 
MM. Bernard, Russell and Fontana give no record of the tem-, 
perature during their observations. That it is a very impor- 
tant condition in the venom-poisoning of the cold-blooded 
batrachia, I have frequently observed ; and it is highly prob- 
able that in all cold-blooded animals the elevation of the tem- 
perature carries with it an increase of danger from poisons, 
and especially from those of a septic nature. 
“ When we examine the pathological effects of the venom 
in warm-blooded animals, we shall see that, while the general 
phenomena were essentially the same as in cold-blooded rep- 
tiles and batrachia, they were far more rapidly produced. 
The Crotalus itself was a good illustration of this contrast, 
and was in other respects exceptional in the mode in which 
it was affected; since, while the muscles were altered, as in 
warm-blooded creatures, the blood coagulated better than was 
usual in them, and the visceral lesions were less severe and 
less frequent. 
“On the other hand, while the frog for its size is remark- 
ably unimpressible by Crotalus venom, the phenomena which 
in it accompanied the examples of slow poisoning were in no 
respect different from those developed in the warm-blooded 
animals.” 
From the same work the following interesting data are 
taken, as they exhibit phenomena having reference to yellow 
or bilious fevers ; 
