NOTES AND QUERIES, 313 



REPTILIA. 



The Poison of Australian Snakes.— Amidst all that has been written 

 about the poison of Australian snakes, very little indeed — in fact, only a 

 few stray remarks here and there — is concerned with its chemistry. As 

 Messrs. Martin and Smith, who are engaged in a systematic investigation 

 of the subject in Sydney, say, a complete investigation into the subject 

 of snake-poison must answer three questions: — I. What is the poison? 

 2. What is its exact physiological action ? 3. How can we best prevent or 

 counteract its action? The great majority of workers have tried to answer 

 the third question first, and whilst it is of course possible, though it has 

 not been done yet, that one might by accident stumble across an 

 f antidote " to snake poison, still it stands to reason that the rational way 

 to begin is to try and answer the first two questions, and having got our 

 answers to these, we may then perhaps hope to scientifically deal with and 

 answer the third. There is the initial difficulty in the Australian snakes, 

 of obtaining a large quantity of poison, because a Black Snake, for 

 example, only puts out at one time perhaps a tenth as much as a fair-ftized 

 Cobra or a Rattlesnake does. What it does put out is, however, sufficiently 

 virulent in nature, for, after drying the venom, it is found that the 

 injection of l-1000th grain is sufficient to kill a rabbit weighing five 

 pounds in a hundred seconds. Messrs. Martin and Smith point out that 

 the amount of solid matter obtained by drying the liquid venom varies 

 considerably under different circumstances, such as previous discharge of 

 poison, feeding, time of year, &c. ; and as the venomous property depends 

 on this solid matter, the virulence of equal quantities of wet snake-poison 

 varies considerably. In other words, it is quite possible that the bite 

 of the same snake might at one time contain enough poison to be fatal and 

 at another time be much less potent, even though the actual amount 

 of fluid injected on each occasion might be the same. They naturally 

 point out that this is an important element to be taken into account in all 

 experiments when the fluid is injected into an animal to ascertain its 

 effects, and that its not being taken into account unfortunately vitiates all 

 the experiments of the committee appointed by the Medical Society of 

 Victoria in 1875-6. Following the experiments of previous workers, it 

 was easily found that, by adding alcohol to the venom, the latter could be 

 divided into two parts, a whitish flocculent substance which is thrown down, 

 and a fluid. The next step in the enquiry is a very evident one, namely, 

 to find out if one or both of these elements contains the poisonous matter. 

 Supposing now that we take three different substances — 1, snake-poison as 

 put out from the snake's fang; 2, the white flocculent matter which is 

 thrown down when absolute alcohol is added to the poison ; 3, the fluid 

 which remains after the absolute alcohol has been added, and test their 



ZOOLOGIST, THIRD SERIES, VOL. XVIII. — AUG. 1 894. 2 B 



