150 C. J. MARTIN. 
An EXPLANATION or tae MARKED DIFFERENCE 1n 
THE EFFECTS PRODUCED sy SUBCUTANEOUS anp 
INTRAVENOUS INJECTION or tHe VENOM oF 
AUSTRALIAN SNAKES. 
By ©. J. Martin, D.8c., M.B., Demonstrator of Physiology in the 
University of Sydney. 
(From the Physiological Laboratory of the University.) 
[Read before the Royal Society of N. 8. Wales, August 5, 1896. ] 
In a recent paper on the physiological action of the venom of 
Pseudechis porphyriacus,! I drew attention to the fact that the 
results following subcutaneous and intravenous inoculation were 
frequently so different that one could hardly imagine one was 
dealing with the same poison, Speaking very generally, when 
minimal fatal doses were employed, after subcutaneous inocula- 
tion, death occurred through paralysis of the respiratory centre, 
whereas in those experiments in which the venom was,introduced _ 
directly into the circulation, death was brought about by the 
_ destructive operation of the venom upon the blood corpuscles, 
setting free nucleo-albumens which occasioned thrombosis. 
This difference is such, that two observers who experimented, 
the one with intravascular the other with subcutaneous injections, 
would assuredly arrive at quite different conclusions as regards 
the physiological action of this snake venom. ‘This variation in 
symptoms according to the method of introduction of the venom 
is not however confined to observations made with the poison of 
Australian snakes. The work of most experimenters on snake 
poisons exhibits the same fact, and this extraordinary variation 
in results has given rise to much confusion. 
These differences, as I have shown in the paper referred to, are 
to a large extent dependent upon the varying rapidity with which 
ee 
1 Proc. Roy. Soc, N. S. Wales, 1895. 
