NATURE AND ANALYSIS OF THE POISONS. 149 
of blood from the mouth and nose, from the urinary canal, 
and at times from under the nails of the extremities. 
In fact, from what symptoms are developed in cases of 
poison of one kind, you arrive at one conclusion by a course 
of reasoning as to its action, only to have this completely set 
aside by the effects produced by snake-poison of another 
kind in other cases. A third kind produces quite different 
effects, so as to make you question the previously formed 
opinion; and lastly, you are left in a maze of doubt as to 
what is true and what not true about its action, by noticing 
carefully the symptoms developed in a fourth case by still 
another variety of the serpent’s poison. 
From the above facts one can readily comprehend some of 
the difficulties that present themselves to the student in this 
branch of science, which by the way is so thankless in results 
that it has occupied the attention of the English surgeons in 
India for one hundred years past; and they frankly confess* 
that very little more is known about them than what Dr. 
Patrick Russell} learned by his studies. 
Since 1860, however, our knowledge on this subject has 
taken a giant stride. Let us hope the day is not far distant 
when this shall have become exhaustive. 
The following article from Fayrer’s Thanatophidiat is a 
curiosity in medical literature, because the Oriental doctors of 
medicine have always shown a disinclination to furnish out- 
side barbarians with any insight into their preparations of 
remedies or methods of treatment. 
* See an editorial in the London Lancet, published during the year 
1870. 
+ Transactions of the Royal Asiatic Society for 1780, from a paper 
read by Dr. Patrick Russell. 
t Lib. cit. 
