128 



THE liAND-MARKS OF 



Cunningham 

 and Lewis's 

 microscopic 

 examination 



of venom, etc. 



Wolfenden's 

 experiments. 



I am inclined to doubt that statement, though, 

 quantity for quantity, it may, of course, be 

 so. Cunningham and Lewis made a careful 

 microscopic examination of cobra-poison and of 

 the blood of the poisoned animals, but with ne- 

 gative results. Dr. Wolfenden, late professor of 

 Physiology at the Charing Cross Medical School, 

 says, however, " I have for some time been mak- 

 ing experiments upon the blood of many ani- 

 mals. I cannot consent to the generally receiv- 

 ed opinion that cobra- venom exerts no influence 

 upon blood. My inAlBstigations, which will short- 

 ly be published, have convinced me that cobra- 

 venom decolorises, by driving out the haemoglo- 

 bin, a large proportion of the discs, and breaks 

 up a large number of the white discs, completely 

 filling the plasm with minute granules. The 

 bacterial forms, which are present in such large 

 numbers, in cobra-venom, I do not think have 

 anything to do with the activity of the venom. 

 When recovery takes place from poisoning, with 

 a dose of the poison insufficient to kill, it is not 

 improbable that a condition of blood-poisoning 

 may supervene, secondarily, as in one of the 

 cases I have quoted." Neither Wall nor I have 

 ever witnessed a condition of. blood-poisoning 



