922 SIR THOMAS R. ERASER ON THE 



With the Government of India arrow-poison or its active constituent I have not 

 discovered any probable cause of death excepting haemorrhage, due, it may be, to a 

 destructive action on blood-vessels. The extravasated blood, however, represents a 

 large percentage of the total blood of the body. It is generally diffused throughout 

 the subcutaneous, and to a less amount the deeper, tissues of the body, and into the 

 alimentary canal. In some experiments it was found only in the alimentary canal 

 (Table XIX, ether extract, 0*01 and 0'02 grm. per kilo) ; and, on the other hand, in 

 other experiments, and especially with small doses, in the subcutaneous and contiguous 

 deeper tissues only (Table XVIII, O'OOl per kilo ether extract, dorsal lymph space). 

 Otherwise, the tissues of the body were usually pallid, and the blood-vessels appeared 

 to contain very little blood. 



In a few experiments in which the condition of the blood was specially examined 

 it was found to be pale and watery, suggesting anaemia ; but as no standard of the 

 normal blood constituents of the frog appears to exist, exact determinations could 

 not be made without frustrating the primary objects of the experiments, for, in order 

 to obtain controls, a considerable quantity of blood would have been required to be 

 taken from each animal before the substance was administered. 



The result of a few estimations of the erythrocytes and haemoglobin, made for 

 me by Mr A. M. Ghosh, one of my clinical assistants, lent a general support to the 

 view that both of these constituents were diminished. 



Excepting pallor and irregularity in size and slight deformation of outline, there 

 has not been observed any change in the red cells ; and from blood drawn immediately 

 after death from a cardiac auricle into a capillary tube, a clear and practically colourless 

 serum separated, from which it may be inferred that this poison has no in vivo 

 haemolytic action (Experiments 0*004 ether extract, May 12, and O'OOl ether extract. 

 January 5, 1914, dorsal lymph space). In a few experiments, the brain and spinal 

 cord were examined after death, but no haemorrhage or even congestion was observed. 

 the appearance being rather that of pallor. 



(d) Oil of Croton Tiglium. 



As the ether extract of the Government of India Abor arrow-poison close I \ 

 resembles croton oil in physical and sensory characters and in well-marked 

 irritative contact effects, it became desirable to ascertain if it otherwise resembles it 

 in action, and, especially, if it can also reproduce the same anomalous peculiarity of 

 an absence of lethal activity in warm-blooded animals as contrasted with great lethal 

 activity in frogs. 



With this object, the experiments summarised in Tables XX and XXI were 

 made with an ordinary commercial specimen of croton oil derived from Croton 

 Tiglium. 



