THE VENOM OF THE AUSTRALIAN BLACK SNAKE. 263 
anthrax and tubercle digestion we have an alkaloid. In diphtheria 
no alkaloid is formed, but an organic acid, and the question 
whether this be nitrogenous, is as yet undetermined. 
The following table taken, and somewhat altered from Sidney 
Martin’s Goulstonian Lectures to the Royal College of Physicians, 
London, illustrates this analogy, to which we have added our 
results with snake poison for comparison :— 
Table illustrating the analogy between various processes of hydration 
due to vital activity. 
Primary Agent. Ferment. Products. 
Albuminous. Nitrogenous. 
Epithelial cell of gland | pepsin hetero, proto, and deutero-} pepto-toxine (in ar- 
(Stomach). albumoses, peptone. tificial digestion) 
Epithelial cell of gland | trypsin globulin like body leucin 
_ (pancreas). peptone tyrosin 
Bacillus anthracis _...| (none) hetero, proto, and deutero-| leucin 
albumoses, peptone. tyrosin 
anthrax alkaloid 
? Nitrogenous. 
Bacillus diphtherie ...| ferment proto and deutero-albu- | organic acid 
mose. 
hetero- 
Epithelial cell of gland | (none) proto- atpamoses ...| organic acid. 
(venom-gland snake) deutero- 
Our conception of the formation of these albumoses in the 
venom-gland of the snake is the following:—The cell, by a vital 
process directly exercises an hydrating influence on the albumins 
supplied to it by the blood, the results of which influence are the 
albumoses, which we find in venom. The differences between this: 
process and the digestion by pepsin or by anthrax bacilli, is that 
in the case of the gland cells of the venom gland the hydration 
stops short at the albumose stage, and is not continued so as to 
form peptone, as is the case with the others mentioned. That 
the protoplasm of gland epithelium is capable of exercising such 
an hydrating influence, we will instance the conversion of glycogen 
into sugar by the liver.. 
It must be borne in mind that although the proto-albumose, 
hetero-albumose, and deutero-albumose which are formed by these 
various agencies, have so far not been chemically differentiated, 
