VENOM OF THE AUSTRALIAN BLACK SNAKE. 157 
produced may be largely that of the diffusible poison, at any rate 
until after the lapse of some interval of time. Ifthe more rapidly 
absorbed constituent be a powerful poison, the animal may suc- 
cumb to its effects before the less diffusible constituent has reached 
the circulation in sufficient concentration to occasion any marked 
effect. On the other hand if the quantity of the former is sub- 
lethal the animal may suffer from its effects, recover, and subse- 
quently exhibit all the symptoms due to the latter. 
When, however, the mixture of poisons is directly introduced 
into the blood stream, both poisons produce their individual effects 
simultaneously, and the animal may succumb to one or other, 
according to the relative amount of each present, and to the vary- 
ing sensitiveness of some essential portion of the physiological 
mechanism. 
When a minimal lethal dose of venom is subcutaneously injected 
the symptoms may be confined to those occasioned by the diffusible 
constituent. The reason is that the indiffusible proteid has been 
absorbed so slowly that the animal has succumbed to the influence 
of the diffusible constituent, or else that the absorption of the 
former was so slow that it was eliminated as rapidly as absorbed. 
Also, it has not infrequently happened that an animal has 
recovered from the paralytic symptoms, been apparently well for 
Some hours, and afterwards died from extensive hemorrhagic 
pneumonia, due to multiple thrombi in the pulmonary circulation, 
or other grave results secondary to blood cell destruction. 
The records of some cases of snake poisoning in Australia show 
& complete parallelism with these experimental results. It has 
happened that the patient has recovered from the paralytic 
symptoms, and has been to all appearance out of danger for a 
considerable number of hours, but has succumbed in one or two 
days with symptoms of extensive blood-cell destruction such as 
hemoglobinuria together with evidence of serious kidney mischief. 
