912 SIR THOMAS R. FRASER ON THE 



of poison smeared over them, which is about 2 millimetres thick where it is most 

 abundant, and lessens much towards the lower end until it becomes insufficient 

 to increase perceptibly the thickness of the shaft (Plate XCIX, figs. 2,3, and 4). 



In nearly all of these respects the Abor and Mishmi poisoned arrows contrast 

 unfavourably in design and skill of construction with the poisoned and much more 

 deadly arrows of the native tribes of Africa. * 



(a) continued. — The poison of the Government of India arrows is firm and hard 

 and moderately brittle, and when pulverised it has a greenish-brown colour. When 

 a small portion was heated on a piece of paper, a permanent, translucent stain was 

 produced indicative of an oily ingredient, which at once distinguished it from the 

 poison of all the other arrows that have been described. 



Experiments were made with portions of the poison of nearly all of the Govern- 

 ment of India arrows, and the effects produced were found to be the same, both 

 qualitatively and quantitatively, in the case of each arrow. 



There was found, however, a remarkable difference between the action of their 

 poison and that of the arrows received from Captain Macdonald, Lieut. -Colonel 

 Sir Wyville Thomson, Colonel Bailey, and Surgeon-General Sloggett. This 

 difference was not only in the nature of the action, but also in the effects produced 

 in warm-blooded animals as contrasted with those produced in the cold-blooded 

 animals that were used — a contrast, further, which is altogether different from that 

 displayed in the case of the aconite-poisoned arrows. 



The effects in warm-blooded animals are shown in the experiments noted in 

 Tables XIII and XIV, in the former of which rats were used and in the latter rabbits, 

 guinea-pigs, cats and pigeons, as it seemed desirable to eliminate any peculiarities 

 of action or resistance that might be confined to rats. 



Although quantities that are very large, even enormous, for any active substance, 

 such as 0'6 grm. per kilo to rats, representing a dose more than one hundred times 

 larger than the minimum lethal of the poison of Colonel Bailey's arrows, had been 

 administered, in none of these or the other warm-blooded animals was a lethal effect 

 produced, whether the poison was introduced under the skin or into the substance 

 of muscles, or whether it was moderately or largely diluted with water or norma] 

 saline. At the same time, doses, whether minute or large, invariably caused pro 

 nounced local irritative effects of long duration, which with large doses were so 

 severe that abscess and ulceration resulted. In warm-blooded animals there was 

 practically no other symptom than that of local irritation, with, occasionally, soft- 

 ness of the bowel evacuations. No blood was passed by the bowels, nor on the 

 occasions on which the urine was examined did either blood or albumen appear in it. 



* For illustrations and descriptions of African poisoned arrows, see papers by the Author, on the Action, etc., 

 of Strojihanthus hispidus and S. sarmentosus, Transactions Royal Society of Edinburgh, vol. xxxv, part iv, 1890, and 

 vol. xlvii, part ii, 1910 ; and of Acokanthera Schimperi, Archives Internationales de Pharmacodynamic, vol. v, 1899. 



