NATURE AND ANALYSIS OF THE POISONS. 1385 
as known, the following table shows which kinds have caused 
the greatest proportion of deaths in the different districts, viz. : 
™ ae , | Central} Central) N. W. 
Bengal.| Orissa. | Assam.}| Oude. india. Central | IN. W. 
Cobra, . . . . 959 128 607 21 854 
Krait, . 
} 160 | 2 105 92 
Bung. cerul., 
Other snakes, . 348 52 12 20 37 63 
Not known, . 4752 | 168 64 473 82 606 986 
British Burmah. Punjab. 
Gobray. «2 2 «45 2 @ aa @ ow Boe Oe 8 76 
Daboia, . . ] 
Hamadryad, . \ 75 Other snakes, . 2 se 242 
Hydrophis, . J Notknown,. . . . . . . 437 
Dr. Fayrer says,* in all cases where the blood forms a firm 
coagulum after death the poison is of a Coluber, and in all 
cases where it remains perfectly fluid it is of a Viper. 
This point is not positively determined as yet. We may, 
however, take the Naja tripudians as heading the scale of 
those poisons whose action on the blood produces a coagulum, 
and the Crotalus as the synonym for the opposite class, whose 
action on the blood produces permanent fluidity ; it is prob- 
able that the action of all the other snake poisons ranges be- 
tween these two extremes. But under certain conditions the 
same kind of poison, taken from the same reptile, produces 
such widely ditterent effects that sometimes it kills quickly, 
at other times it kills slowly, and during a certain annual 
period in the life of the reptile it does not produce death, but 
causes a partial septicemia only. 
To explain, viz.: Just at the time when the snake begins 
* The Thanatophidia of India, by J. Fayrer, M.D. London: J. & A. 
Churchill, 1872. : 
