THE VENOM OF THE AUSTRALIAN BLACK SNAKE. DALY 
(4) Caustic potash and traceof CuSO, —brilliant biuret reaction. 
(5) Nitric acid—a precipitate soluble on heating but returning 
on cooling. (This precipitate is increased in presence of 
more Na Cl). 
(6) Picric acid—precipitate disappearing on heating, returning 
on cooling. 
(7) Saturated with Na Cl—precipitate. 
(8) Saturated with Mg SO,—precipitate. 
(9) Saturated with Am,SO,—precipitate. 
(10) Dropping the fresh solution into distilled water produces a 
cloud. 
(11) Cu SO, 5% solution—precipitate. 
(12) Alcohol—precipitate. 
From the above reactions it is obvious that the poison contains: 
(a) A proteid coagulable by heat, viz. albumin or globulin. 
(6) Some proteid or proteids not thrown out of solution by this 
treatment, which might include albuminates (acid albumin), 
albumoses, or peptone. 
A solution of the fresh poison gives no precipitate when neu- 
tralized by 1 in 5,000 KHO, thus excluding the presence of acid 
albumin. Peptone also is absent, for the solution was acidulated 
with a drop of 5°/ H,SO,* and shaken with Am,SO, crystals for 
twenty-four hours. After this thorough saturation the filtrate was 
proteid-free. 
The albumoses present are hetero-albumose, proto-albumose, 
and possibly deutero-albumose in small quantity, these were sepa- 
rated in the following manner :— 
A solution of the original poison was heated to 90° C. and 
filtered. The filtrate was saturated with Mg SO, and shaken for 
twelve hours. By this means a flocculent precipitate was produced. 
The whole was then thrown on to a filter and thoroughly washed 
with a saturated solution of Mg 80O,. 
* Vide Neumeister ‘“ Ueber-Albumosen und peptonen,” Zeitschrift f. 
Bidl. Bd. xxvi., 1890. 
